


like real people do

by s0upertr0uper



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton Feels, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Has Issues, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, POV Alternating, Protective Clint Barton, Slow Romance, in this house we deal with trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:53:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26482966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s0upertr0uper/pseuds/s0upertr0uper
Summary: "This time, neither of them were running away. And that was enough."A story of self-forgiveness, told through snapshots of ten years.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 7
Kudos: 59





	1. 2011

**Author's Note:**

> this series is about dealing with and overcoming trauma- for those reasons, there will be mentions of topics like abuse, self-harm, and assault. I will give a specific content warning for a chapter when necessary, and I will not be going into detail that I would find triggering about these things, but these themes are present. 
> 
> the series is named after a hozier song that I think fits this pairing well- I hope you enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> opening up the story with a moment in 2011
> 
> cw: mild self harm mention, mention of abuse

_Why were you digging? What did you bury_

_Before those hands pulled me from the earth?_

**********

**Mexico City, 2011**

“Nat?” Clint asked.

The pair was in the large bathtub of their hotel room, Clint sitting up, leaning against the wall of the tub and Natasha between his legs, the back of her head resting on his chest, her eyes closed. Clint was gently playing with Natasha’s hair, a gesture that he could rely on to make her feel safe and protected, if the journal that Clint had found in her room once and _mistakenly_ read was to be believed, that is. The water was the perfect temperature of almost-scalding, the skin of both of their bodies turning pink from the heat. Soft jazz music (Clint was a sucker for Sinatra) played faintly, courtesy of the small speaker that he had brought specifically for a situation such as this.

“Yeah?” Natasha opened her eyes, coming out of her reverie.

He didn’t want to ruin the peaceful moment she seemed to be having, but Clint knew that today had triggered something for her, and they should probably talk about it, despite how awful the two of them were with discussions about their feelings. He decided that going about it indirectly was his best bet. “Are there any good memories from your childhood?”

Silence.

“I’m sorry to ask, it’s just…seeing those kids today made me wonder.”

**********

Of course, the fucking kids: Natasha hated when their missions directly involved children. Not only did it often bring up unpleasant memories, it made her go too soft in the field.

Unsurprisingly, she had found it difficult to be the Black Widow earlier that day when she and Clint had stumbled upon a child who immediately clung to her, sobbing. Their mission was to eliminate a human trafficking ring operating out of an orphanage, and their strategy was to enter the building from the third-floor window that faced an empty alley, then make their way down to the ground floor.

They had made it to the second floor, taking out four armed men on the way, and had entered a large room with about 20 small beds, clearly where some of the children slept. There was a small rustling sound, and a child suddenly crawled out from under one of the beds, startling the pair and prompting them to reach for their weapons.

The girl ran to them and automatically wrapped her arms around Natasha, holding on for dear life as she started to cry. Natasha had frozen for a moment and looked at Clint with mild panic in her eyes, caught in a rare moment of uncertainty in the field. “Tell her to wait for you here” he whispered, “you can come back for her as soon as we terminate some of the targets.”

Natasha knelt down, gently taking the little girl’s hands. “My name is-“ she hesitated “-Natalie. We’re going to help you. What’s your name?” She had asked the child in Spanish.

The girl sniffed and replied tearfully “Maria.” Natasha guessed she was about six, although it was hard to say- she looked malnourished.

“Such a pretty name.” Natasha had cooed softly. “Can you wait here for me? My friend and I have to make sure you and the others will be safe. Do you know where the other children are?” 

Maria nodded, snot running down her face, gripping Natasha’s hands tightly. “They are in the basement. I hid under the bed, no one saw.”

“Can you wait here for me?” Natasha repeated.

“Yes.” The child replied, wiping her eyes and crawling back under the bed, never taking her eyes off of Natasha.

Clint and Natasha mowed through the armed men posted throughout the building, eventually reaching the basement. There, they had found roughly thirty children huddled in the dark, terror written all over their small faces. As Clint began counting and checking for anyone injured, he had looked at Natasha and said “I’ve got it. Go get her.”

Natasha sprinted back to the bedroom, and Maria had run to her as soon as she was in the doorway. She scooped the girl up, carrying her on her hip and returned to help Clint get the children out of the building. As she spoke to the orphans, she had noticed the way she absent-mindedly snuggled Maria close to her, stroking her hair to calm her down in a way that no one had ever done for her as a child. The pitying look Clint had given her let her know that he had noticed as well. 

Police had been alerted to their presence and were waiting outside along with social workers and EMS personnel. Natasha and Clint led the kids out of the orphanage, where they were instantly swarmed with people asking their names, handing them blankets, pulling them over to the ambulance to check out some nasty cuts and bruises, and ushering them into vehicles so they could be taken into state custody.

Eventually, a social worker had spotted Maria, still in Natasha’s arms, and came over, presumably to take her and put her into an already packed car. The clearly overwhelmed social worker wordlessly put her arms out for the child, and Natasha attempted to pry the girl off of her.

“Maria” Natasha had said, weakly trying to smile at her. “This kind woman is going to take you some place safe. You’ll never have to come back here again, I promise.”

Despite her reassurance, Maria had begun to sob again, desperately trying to hold on to Natasha, flailing her little limbs as she was handed off to the other woman. The child continued to look over the social worker’s shoulder, still reaching for Natasha and crying

“We have to go, Nat.” Clint had said softly, grabbing Natasha’s arm and gently pulling her towards the alleyway.

As Clint led her away, she had been unable to look away from the big brown eyes of the helpless child who didn’t stop reaching her small hands out for Natasha until she was shoved into the backseat of the car.

**********

Natasha’s body had become tense against Clint’s as she sunk lower into the water. Clint knew that it was a testament to how deeply she trusted him that Natasha even entertained the idea of answering. She gathered herself, taking a deep breath, and Clint wrapped his arms around her.

“It was Christmas Eve, I was nine. There wasn’t a trainer one room over as there usually was, ready to burst in and punish us all if there was any noise after the lights had been turned out. Instead, all of our instructors had decided to celebrate the holiday: they were drinking and carrying on, playing music and laughing uproariously late into the night. And we could hear the music. We were never permitted to listen to music that had words in it, lyrics. We all lie there in rapture, drinking it in. After a while, a couple of the more rebellious girls began whispering to one another. Soon, all of us were chatting and giggling, like normal little girls.”

Natasha smiled softly at the memory, melting Clint’s heart: she had the most beautiful smile, and selfishly, he liked that the genuine ones were reserved, almost exclusively, for him.

“I’m not sure how it started- but a short time later, we were _dancing_. Twirling, holding hands and spinning each other around, dipping each other dramatically…” Her smile faltered.

“We heard footsteps coming down the hallway a little while later, and everyone scrambled, getting into bed as quickly as we could. When the door opened, all of us were under the covers, feigning sleep. Except for one girl.” Natasha swallowed hard, voice breaking. “Actually, Maria, the little girl today, she reminded me a little of her. They must have been around the same age.” Clint pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“She was still climbing into bed. The instructor came into the room and dragged the girl out by the collar of her nightgown. We could hear the instructor beating her right outside the door, the awful sound of a cane hitting her tiny body over and over again. And we all just laid there, doing nothing.”

“Nat, you couldn’t have stopped that. Those people in the Red Room, they were fucking sick!” Clint insisted, although he sensed that Natasha’s guilt was not only caused by this particular memory, but also by the situation with Maria.

“She was the youngest in the dormitory, I should have taken responsibility, I should have taken the punishment instead of her.” She continued wearily, digging her nails into her arms ruthlessly, the way she did when she was deeply upset.

It was a self-soothing technique she must have learned when she was young, and it was a difficult one to break. By the time Natasha was nineteen, when she and Clint became partners, she was in the habit of opening her skin every night, some kind of terrible bedtime ritual.

It wasn’t long into their partnership before Clint noticed the marks. He had helped her learn to release her anger through training as opposed to on her skin. Although Clint knew that, yes, it was still a form of self-punishment, running seven miles as fast as she could, or sparring with him until they were both badly bruised and sore, but it was punishment that made her stronger, better, and left her with a clear mind: the lesser of two evils.

“Hey!” Clint wrapped his arms around her tighter so he could take her hands, stopping her assault on her skin. “Natasha.” She wouldn’t look at him, completely consumed by the ghosts that sometimes overtook her.

“Nat. I don’t judge you for a single thing that you did before SHIELD. You did what you had to do to make it out- to make it to me.” This seemed to break her resolve to hold herself together. She quickly turned her head and buried her face in-between his chest and his arm, letting the horrible tears run onto his skin, mixing with the bathwater.

Her whole body shook as she cried. Clint wasn’t sure what to say, he was never good at that part, so he held her fiercely, one hand rubbing circles on her back, the other protectively holding her head to his chest, as if he was shielding her from and explosion.

It was difficult to tell how much time had gone by, but eventually she stilled in his arms, tears ceasing at last. Clint gently sat her up and climbed out of the bathtub, grabbing two fluffy white towels from under the sink. He wrapped one around his waist, then held out a hand to Natasha to help her out of the tub.

Still not speaking, she accepted his arm and stepped out of the bathtub, shuddering at the cool air on her naked body. Clint wrapped the other towel around her and said, “Let’s go sit down on the bed.”

He steered her out of the bathroom to the insanely comfortable king-sized bed in the middle of their room. She sat down automatically, still shivering, as Clint dug a clean pair of sweatpants and a soft t-shirt out of her bag; when he stood in front of her holding her clothes, she understood immediately and held her arms up so he could pull the t-shirt over her head. They had gone through this routine before: in the early days of their partnership, Natasha had gone catatonic like this fairly often, a side-effect from whatever the hell SHIELD did to “deprogram” her. She hadn’t talked to Clint all that much even on her best days, but this was different, an eerie, unsettling kind of quiet.

Once he had dressed her, and then himself, he flopped himself down onto the bed, groaning a little at the soreness in his back. He was getting old. Natasha remained sitting on the edge of the bed, back as straight as a board, facing the wall. “Come to bed.” Clint said softly.

She obeyed. She always did when she was like this. Clint had angrily questioned Colson, Fury, and several other agents about why she did this, and no one had ever given him a straight answer. Clint’s guess was that it was purposeful, that they did _something_ during her “deprogramming” to ensure she could be completely controlled, if need be.

Clint curled his body around hers, wrapping her tightly in his embrace. After a second, Natasha gave his arm a small squeeze, letting him know she was still in there, somewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave comments so I'm motivated to procrastinate my school work and write instead!


	2. 2003

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's chapter two- somewhere near the beginning, full of Clint and Natasha backstory

**********

**SHIELD Headquarters, 2003**

Natasha was questioning whether or not she had made the right choice. Clint had told her that SHIELD was the “good guy”, that they wouldn’t hurt her. He had lied. Today, when they had moved her out of a cell and into one of the small, standard-issue apartments that were given to SHIELD agents who opted to live on base, they had told her that she had been here for three months. She found that hard to believe, as she could barely piece together enough memories to make up a week. What she did remember, she remembered in flashes: a voice screaming questions at her that she couldn’t answer, water pouring onto her face until she thought she would drown, her head firmly held still as she was forced to watch video surveillance footage of events that had made her ledger drip red. Screaming- she remembered screaming.

When she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror of her new living quarters, she barely recognized herself. She had lost weight, a lot of it, her face gaunt and her body all bones. Her skin was sallow, and her hair was dull and thin, as if clumps of it had fallen out (which wasn’t unlikely, the more she thought about it). Natasha didn’t remember ever looking worse, and she was dying to get her hands on some makeup, some mascara and concealer at the very least. She scowled at her reflection, knowing that wouldn’t be possible for a while: she had been warned explicitly of the terms of her release from the cell.

“Leave the building, physically harm anyone, or destroy any property and you will find that you won’t be seeing age twenty, Miss Romanoff.” The Director, the man with the eye-patch had told her before she had been released from her handcuffs. Fury, she recalled. She had also been warned that she would be watched, constantly, whether she knew it or not.

Natasha started to twist her hair into a braid, tying it off quickly when she heard a knock on her door. Puzzled, she opened it and found the Archer, standing in the hallway, looking incredibly nervous.

“Hey” he tried to smile but mostly looked uncomfortable. “I’m Agent Barton- if you remember. I’m in charge of your training, and if all goes well, we’re going to be, uh, partners.”

Natasha nodded. She had been uncertain if she would ever see him again but had hoped she would. He had saved her life and risked his job, putting her squarely in his debt.

“How are you doing? You look…“ he looked her up and down, seeming to take notice of her appearance for the first time, his visible discomfort becoming obvious concern “…well.”

“I am not well.” She answered flatly.

“Can I come in?” the Archer asked, concern still written on his face. Natasha stepped aside from the doorway, and he quickly entered and shut the door behind him, like he was afraid of being overheard or followed.

He sat down at the small table in the kitchen area, looking around her sterile apartment. The furnishings provided were a table, two chairs, a small couch, and a bed, and there was nothing in the apartment besides these items. It made Natasha feel institutionalized. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to check on you earlier. I tried but they told me I couldn’t see you until you were finished with deprogramming.”

Natasha nodded and joined him at the table. She felt weak just from standing for a few minutes and realized that she desperately needed to find something to eat soon.

Agent Barton continued nervously “I figured I would give you a couple days to settle in before we started training. Is that okay? Is there anything you need?”

“I would like to start training immediately. Please.” There was nothing for her to do here, she might as well begin working. She considered his other question. “I need to find clothes. And food.”

The Archer frowned. “Oh. Right. How did you get the clothes you’re wearing?”

“I’m not certain. They were given to me when I arrived. They took what I was wearing before, this is all I have now.”

He looked at her and wrinkled his nose. “You’ve been wearing the same clothes for three months?”

“I washed them whenever they would let me shower. They never gave me anything else, and I never asked.”

Agent Barton looked at her as if he was making up his mind about something. “Alright, well, let’s get you some clothes.” He stood up and offered her a hand.

Natasha looked at him with suspicion but decided that if he had gone through the trouble to not kill her before, then he wouldn’t hurt her now. She gingerly accepted his hand, then saw black spots as she stood up, nearly falling over.

“Woah, woah.” Startled, the Archer caught her under the armpits, holding her up. “When’s the last time you ate?”

She caught her balance and stared at him blankly.

He sighed. “First, lunch.”

**********

Clint watched as the Black Widow devoured the burger and fries that he bought her in the SHIELD canteen: the poor kid was starving. She looked terrible and sickly, nothing like how she looked when he brought her in. Not only that, but her demeanor had completely changed: gone was the self-assuredness, the suggestive comments, the easy charm. She looked and behaved like she had spent the last several months being tortured.

He was majorly pissed. When he had promised her that she would be safe at SHIELD, he had believed it, but now he wasn’t certain. That evening he would hunt down Fury, he decided, and find out what exactly they did to her during her “deprogramming”.

The Widow sat back after clearing her plate and was now looking at him with curiosity. Clint knew he shouldn’t call her that, but it was hard to think of her as anything else. SHIELD had christened her Natasha Romanoff, a slightly altered version of the Russian name she had given when they had met in Budapest, Natalia. Romanoff, then, although that felt strange.

“You done?” He asked her, and she nodded as he gathered her trash and threw it in the nearby garbage can. “Okay then, let’s go shopping.” He chuckled a little at the strange situation.

“I was instructed not to leave the building.” She said it as if it were a question, but she followed him anyway.

Clint rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry about that, I’ll handle it. I’m your babysitter, I’ll take the slap on the wrist.”

She nodded, looking a tad nervous. “I don’t have money, they took it.”

“I got it covered. Consider it a ‘welcome to America’ gift.”

And so Hawkeye took the Black Widow to a department store where she picked out a few shirts, all black, two sweaters, a pair of shoes, and a couple pairs of pants. It was apparent that she had no idea what she liked, so she picked only the most nondescript items; this would have made Clint sad if he hadn’t been so relieved that her non-existent taste in clothes significantly simplified the shopping process. Just as he was about to ask her if she was ready to check out, he had a horrible thought: bras and underwear.

God, why couldn’t this job have gone to someone else? He walked over to the section of the store that had undergarments, and she followed him wordlessly. Clint turned to her, painfully aware that his face was a little red.

“Do you want me to give you some space?” He asked, delicately as possible.

For the first time that day, she gave him the tiniest smile. “Embarrassed, Agent Barton?” She walked past him into the aisle and began scrutinizing the different bras intensely. Great, this she had opinions on.

After a few minutes, she walked back over to him with two lacy bras and some equally lacy pairs of panties. Clint felt his face turn red again, but he simply nodded at her and went to check out.

Upon their return, they were swarmed by several agents as soon as they entered the building, Fury among them.

“What in the hell were you thinking Barton?” Fury demanded, angrier than Clint had ever seen him, even angrier than when he found out that Clint intended on bringing the Black Widow back to SHIELD instead of following his orders. When he glanced at Romanoff, he saw that she was shaking, knuckles white with how hard she was gripping the handle of the large shopping bag.

“Well, after you stripped her of all worldly possessions, leaving her with nothing but the clothes on her back, which, by the way, she’s been wearing for three months, you gave me no choice but to take her clothes shopping.” Clint said cheerfully, wanting to diffuse the tense situation.

“And you didn’t think to clear this with someone first?” Then he rounded on Natasha, grabbing her by the shoulder. “And you! Was I unclear about the terms of your release? Did you think I was bluffing?”

She was still shaking, staring at him fearfully. Clint wondered, not for the first time that day, what they had done to her. Now he was pissed again, not caring that a crowd had gathered, everyone eager to watch the drama unfold.

“Okay, enough!” He stepped in between her and Fury, gently pushing her behind him, breaking Fury’s grip. “This was completely my idea. Not hers. I’ll take the heat for it, just let me get her back to her apartment.”

Fury shook his head, still furious. “Fine. My office, Barton, 8 am.”

Clint ignored this, turning to the Widow. “Let’s go” he said softly, and she began walking towards to direction of her apartment. Before he could follow, Fury blocked his path.

“Agent Barton, a word of advice. If I didn’t know any better, I would say the rumors are true.”

He knew exactly which rumors he meant. That the Black Widow had seduced him, had him under her spell. That he was compromised.

“Good thing you know better, sir.” Clint clenched his jaw, side-stepping Fury and following Romanoff down the hallway.

By the time he caught up to her she was right outside her apartment door. “I’m sorry” he rushed the words out, feeling guilty. “I should have run it by someone, I didn’t think he’d take it out on you like that. I figured if they had let you out of a cell, they trusted you not to run.”

She said nothing, unlocking her apartment with her temporary keycard and walking right to the cheap couch, sitting down heavily but with her back ramrod straight. She didn’t look at him, or anything else for that matter, focusing only on the wall she was facing.

He crouched down in front of her. “You alright?”

She didn’t respond.

“Hey. Romanoff.” Nothing. 

"Natasha!” he practically shouted, waving his hand in front of her face.

Still nothing.

Clint wondered if she had gone into shock, or if this was some kind of Red Room brainwashing thing. No one knew what went on in there, but the rumors suggested abuse, torture, and even mind control. He sighed. This was not what he signed up for when he made the snap decision not to kill a young woman who had never been given a chance to be anything but a killing machine- but he supposed this was just his luck.

For a few minutes, he stayed crouched in front of her, trying to decide what to do. Did she need medical? Should he be panicking? Eventually, he decided a good night’s sleep was his best bet, so he stood up and lifted her under her armpits, just as he had earlier when she nearly blacked out.

“Let’s get you to bed.” Surprisingly, she cooperated, half walking, half letting him drag her to the cramped bedroom. She climbed into bed without acknowledging Clint any further and curled into the fetal position, as if trying to make herself as small as possible.

Clint sighed, going to pull the covers over her on impulse, then realizing that there were no sheets or blankets on the thin mattress. As he watched her close her eyes and settle in, Clint decided that Natasha probably shouldn’t be left alone, just in case she went into Black Widow mode and decided to kill everyone at SHIELD. He walked back to the living room and made himself as comfortable as possible on the couch, knowing that he would wake up with an awfully stiff back and neck. Drifting off, Clint made a mental note to get the girl some bedsheets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave comments so I'm motivated to procrastinate my school work and write instead!


	3. 2008

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure this fic will span from 2003-2013, so this chapter is just about the midpoint in our timeline. I hope you enjoy it! in case it was unclear, ****** indicates a change in POV (there's several in this chapter)

******

 **Berlin, Germany, 2008**

Clint was a dumbass. Everyone at SHIELD knew it, but after roughly five years of being his partner, no one was more well-acquainted with this fact than Natasha.

It’s not that he was actually stupid, of course, it’s that he was impulsive. It was part of what made he and Natasha a balanced pair: she was constantly calculating, never making rash decisions, and his philosophy was that sometimes going with your gut made more sense than planning everything to a T. Usually there was some merit to be found in both of schools of thought, and Clint’s instincts were often right. This time, however, they were very wrong.

There was always a plan in the event that a mission majorly went south: they decided on a meeting spot for emergencies, and if the other wasn’t there in five minutes, go to the nearest safehouse without them and alert Coulson. They had only needed to use this backup strategy a couple of times, each time without a hitch, but Natasha reiterated it every single mission, knowing how Clint was when he thought she was in serious danger. “Don’t go after me” she had told him, time and time again. “If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s running away.”

Natasha was in the basement of the compound when she saw the bomb, forty-five seconds on the timer. They had known she was coming. She broke into a flat out run.

She reached for her earpiece to tell Clint to abort mission, and her stomach dropped: her earpiece had fallen out. For the first time in years, Natasha prayed, to anyone who would listen, that Clint’s position in a nearby building would be far enough away from the explosion.

******

Clint sat in his perch, keeping his scope trained on the compound Natasha had infiltrated, feeling uneasy. It had been too easy for her to get in, there was too little security. He had a horrible thought, and scanned the building, using infrared this time. Fuck.

“Romanoff, explosive, abort mission!” He shouted into the earpiece, but heard it echoed back to him. He scanned the room, heart stopping when he saw Natasha’s earpiece on the ground next to him.

He heard Natasha’s voice in his head, telling him to stick to the plan, always the more level-headed of the two. “I’m sorry”, he whispered, and he ran towards the compound. 

******

Natasha was about a block away when the building exploded, diving behind a car as glass shattered and debris flew. Sirens had just started blaring when she made it to the meeting point, Clint nowhere in sight. Instantly, she knew, he had gone after her, the fucking idiot. If he had abandoned the plan, then she would too: she ran back towards the explosion.

******

His body was being crushed and his ears were ringing. It hurt. Everything hurt. Clint tried to stay alert, to find a way out, but his consciousness was fading fast. Natasha. Where was Natasha? There she was, she was right in front of him, running towards him, grabbing his hand. Her mouth was moving, she was saying something, but he couldn’t hear her over the ringing. Was she crying?

It all went dark.

******

Natasha could have killed the nurse who held her back as they wheeled Clint into surgery. She filled out all the paperwork, using the deep cover that SHIELD had set up for him in case of situations such as this one: Peter Weber. Luckily, Peter Weber had a wife, Anna, who could be with Peter as soon as he was out of surgery and stabilized. It was equally lucky that Peter had had a bag with him that Anna stashed their weapons into before the ambulance came.

When she was finished with the forms, she sat in the waiting room, biting back tears, and decided to call Coulson again. She had called him in the ambulance, telling him only that there was an explosion, that Clint was hurt, and the name of the hospital, then hung up before he could say anything. Walking out into the empty hallway, she dialed the number.

“Romanoff!” His voice sounded stern but relieved, oddly paternal.

Natasha spoke in what was almost a whisper, in the strangled manner of someone desperately trying not to cry. “There was a bomb and I didn’t have my earpiece. He must have seen it too, he went to save me instead of running.” She inhaled shakily “I followed protocol. I was unharmed in the blast, but he- Phil, there was so much blood”.

“I’m on my way, my flight leaves in an hour.” There was static on his end, like he was calling from a car. His voice softened. “Eat something. Get your things and book a hotel room. I’ll see you soon.” The line went dead.

She was glad that he didn’t promise her that Clint was going to be okay. That would have just made her angry. Natasha was suddenly aware of her exhaustion, and the fact that her hand probably needed stitches- she had cut it on shattered glass trying to dig Clint’s legs out of the rubble. She decided to ignore the hand and find some coffee. It was going to be a long night.

Four hours and three cups of coffee later, a doctor came over to her seat in the waiting room.

“Anna Weber?” She confirmed.

Natasha stood up, her entire body tensed as if she was about to get into a fight.

“His injuries are severe, but your husband will live.”

She felt almost nauseous with the rush of relief, her shoulders slightly unclenching.

“He has internal bleeding from broken ribs. His right leg was broken in two places, his left ankle was shattered. His collar bone is broken. It’s likely that he has a concussion. All of this, he’ll recover from, with time.”

Natasha nodded, overwhelmed, but feeling a sliver of hope creep in. Individually, she had suffered nearly all of his injuries, and had made a full recovery. He could get back into the field, eventually.

“When can I see him?”

“I can take you to him now. He’s still unconscious, but he should wake up in few hours.”

She followed the doctor back to room 35A, thanking the doctor as she left to attend to her other patients. Another wave of relief washed over her as she saw him lying there so peacefully, dressed in a hospital gown, chest rising and falling steadily through all the tubes and wires attached to him. Natasha studied him. He was paper-white and intubated and covered in cuts and bruises, but he was Clint and he was okay and that was all that mattered.

Slowly, she leaned over him, hesitating a little before gently kissing his forehead.

“I’m sorry” she whispered, fully aware that he couldn’t hear her, that she was being stupid and sentimental. She decided that after nearly losing him, she didn’t care. “I’m here now.”

******

The months that followed could be described by Clint in one word: frustrating. He had been injured before, but never this badly, and the idea of months of long, painful recovery, while being dependent on others, made him cranky as soon as he woke up in the Berlin hospital.

SHIELD flew him and Natasha back to the states on a jet a couple weeks after the explosion, once he was stable enough to fly, prompting Clint to ask why the hell they’d been holding out on him for all these years by making him fly commercially.

Once they got back to Headquarters, it became clear that it had already been decided, by everyone except Clint, that Natasha would take care of him until he was back to being functional. A nurse would come by his apartment in the morning to help him with basic grooming, and Natasha would help him throughout the rest of the day. Her job was mostly to make sure he was eating and to get him to daily PT appointments, helpfully located in Headquarters’ medical wing.

Natasha was over at his apartment every day at eight in the morning. She would help him into a wheelchair (a broken leg and a broken ankle made crutches out of the question) and push him into the kitchen, where she would make a pot of strong coffee and pour him a bowl of cereal. After breakfast, they would play cards or a board game- where Natasha had gotten them, he didn’t know- until the nurse arrived at ten. Both of them were on paperwork duty for the time being, and would work at Clint’s kitchen table until two, when Clint had PT. Natasha went to the gym to train during his appointments, and when they were both finished, they usually worked some more before eating dinner together. Neither of them really knew how to cook, but Natasha could follow simple recipes well enough to make a meal that wasn’t half-bad.

Clint’s favorite part of the day by far was after dinner. As the weeks went on, they made a dent in the ridiculously long list of movies that Clint had compiled for Natasha to watch. Despite having been at SHIELD for a decent amount of time, her pop culture knowledge had remained abysmal: she was a reader, and she didn’t even own a TV. He was partial to alien movies, the cheesier the better, but made a diversified viewing list, hoping to find something that Natasha would actually _like_ \- Clint knew, perhaps better than anyone, that those things were few and far between. In true Natasha fashion, her face remained impassive throughout the films, always leaving Clint unsure if she loved the movie, hated it, or simply didn’t care much for movies. That is, until the night they watched the Wizard of Oz.

From the first scene, she was entranced. She sat on the couch, knees drawn up to her chest, blanket wrapped around her shoulders, hanging on to every word the actors spoke. Clint watched, delighted, as her eyes actually _lit up_ when the film switched from black and white to color when Dorothy entered Oz. He could hardly pay attention to the movie. Watching her was so much better, seeing her usual air of ambivalence vanish and give way to genuine excitement.

When it was over, she turned to him, eyes bright.

Clint chuckled. “Did you like it?”

“Yes.” She said, nodding slowly, eyebrows slightly furrowed. “I think- it’s my favorite.” And then she gave him an almost-bashful smile that made him so happy he couldn’t help but grin.

This one of those times when Clint thought that if he hadn’t been in frequent pain and pretty much contained in his apartment, besides PT, which made him want to tear his hair out daily, their routine would have been kind of nice in a mundane way. Clint would have imagined that having someone else in his apartment with him for approximately nine hours a day, seven days a week, would have made him wish that that bomb had finished the job and killed him, but with Natasha, the companionship was almost comforting.

About two and a half months after they returned to New York, Clint was out of the wheelchair for good, leg and ankle healed enough to walk on, although it would still take months of PT before he could start getting back into shape and train for real. He was thrilled to say goodbye to the chair, immediately returning it to the medical wing moments after his doctor officially cleared him. When Natasha came to meet him after his appointment, she raised her eyebrows at the sight of him walking, albeit gingerly.

“He walks. It’s a miracle.” She said in a flat monotone, her small smile indicating that she really was happy for him.

“For moderate stretches of time, with breaks. Celebrate my mobility with a fancy coffee?” The Wizard of Oz and lattes were two things he knew were on Natasha’s short list of favorites.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

They made the fairly brief walk from Headquarters to the coffee shop SHIELD Agents tended to frequent when they needed a small escape. The shop was lit warmly, with overstuffed armchairs and couches for seating in addition to the standard café tables and chairs, and smelled like fresh pastries and coffee, providing a much-needed contrast to how cold and sterile HQ could feel on bad days.

Clint ordered for both himself and Natasha and paid before she could even reach for her wallet.

“You didn’t have to do that.” She murmured as they found a table, drinks in hand.

“I know. It’s a lame attempt at a ‘thank you’, for tolerating me at my grumpiest for the last several months, and for making sure I didn’t starve.” He replied easily, taking a sip of his drip coffee. He was a no-frills kind of guy when it came to caffeine, but he appreciated a good roast, a welcome change from the cheap shit he used at home.

“You could never be in my debt” She said somberly, looking him dead in the eyes. “Especially not after Berlin.” She continued, softer, glancing down at her coffee cup.

“What?”

“It’s my fault you were hurt. I’m the one who forgot the comms earpiece.”

“Nat.” He paused, realizing that he had never called her by a nickname before, half expecting to be punched or stabbed for the familiarity. But she didn’t react, keeping her eyes downward. “I’m the idiot who broke protocol. We had a plan for a reason, you went over it a thousand times, and I threw it out in the moment when we needed it.” He swallowed hard. “I just couldn’t let you die without even trying to save you.”

Finally, she looked at him, eyes flashing with an emotion that he didn't often see on her: anger. “How many times do I have to tell you? I spent my entire life training to become the perfect operative. If only one of us makes it out of a mission, I can almost guarantee it will be me. Stop underestimating my ability to run away!”

She took a breath and seemed to collect herself. “Clint, if this partnership is to continue, you have to promise me that you’re going to stifle your martyr instinct from now on.”

Clint nodded wearily, knowing that she was right. “Alright. No self-sacrifice. I promise.”

Natasha exhaled, as if relieved. Then she shocked him by covering his hand that sat atop the table with her own. “I’m not worth the loss of Clint Barton.” He was about to protest until she smiled softly, as if a bit nervous about what she was about to say. “I’ve never known someone like you. Someone who wants to learn what I like, without a motive. Someone who I can spend all day with, and never begin to hate. Someone who can call me ‘Nat’.”

He elected to ignore the comment about the worth of her life, instead putting his other hand on top of hers and squeezing lightly. “Get used to it. I’m not going anywhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave comments so I'm motivated to procrastinate my school work and write instead!


	4. 2004

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mild content warning for mention of previous sexual assault. nothing graphic, I just want to give a heads up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2 chapters in 1 day- probably won't happen again, but I had this one ready

**********

**SHIELD Headquarters, 2004**

Hawkeye and the Black Widow had finally completed their first mission together, a straightforward data retrieval. Clint had half-expected Romanoff to cut and run, but he calmed his nerves by reasoning with himself that if she was going to make a break for it, she would have done it a long time ago. After all, Clint had certainly given her plenty of opportunities as time went on, much to Coulson’s and Fury’s irritation.

It had been a long road for the two of them to be cleared for fieldwork. During the months that Natasha had been held in a cell, Clint had been re-assigned to a desk job, punishment for what Fury had delicately called “being a dumbass”.

And then there had been the extensive training. Romanoff was an expert, there was no denying it: her athleticism was incredible, and she was unmatched in hand-to-hand combat. He felt that he learned more from her in those areas than vice versa. Marksmanship was the one area where Clint knew he had her beat, even though hers was admittedly impressive. But he was Hawkeye, and everyone knew Hawkeye never missed.

Clint, Coulson, and everyone else who saw her on her first day of training knew that she could pass every field-test, general and specialized, that SHIELD had to offer that very day, no training necessary. But the problem wasn’t her skills, it was the fact that she couldn’t be trusted. For four months they followed a schedule: they trained together from seven to noon, then Clint worked the rest of the day at his stupid desk job and Romanoff did…whatever it was that she did when Clint wasn’t around.

When the Academy started for the year, SHIELD’s introductory training program for rookie Agents, Romanoff joined them, officially becoming an Agent of SHIELD. She was an exemplary rookie, acing every test on SHIELD’s history, responsibilities, ethics, policies, divisions, etc., and absolutely blowing the rest of her class out of the water in every practical exam. Clint was finally taken off the desk and put in charge of practical training for the Academy, partially to continue to babysit Natasha, but mostly because he was one of the best.

After Natasha’s graduation from the Academy (Clint had presented her with a silly ‘Congrats Grad!’ balloon that actually made her smile) and all the other new Agents were assigned bottom-of-the-ladder positions, she and Clint went through Strike Team certifications and tests, passing with flying colors. And at long last, Strike Team Delta was born.

Romanoff was as much of an excellent partner in the field as she had been in training; she had let Clint take the lead and give orders in the field, but she seemed to know what he wanted her to do before he even said it. It had surprised Clint how well they worked together, the two notorious loners. Natasha scared the living hell out of most of the Agents, and the majority she didn’t terrify, hated her: senior SHIELD members hadn’t forgotten that she had killed two of their Agents, a few months before Clint was sent to eliminate her. Clint wasn’t particularly popular either. He was well-respected, that was certain, but he had a reputation for being stubborn and a show-off who had “problems with authority”, which wasn’t a completely unfair analysis.

But he and Romanoff somehow just worked. She wasn’t big on talking, and Clint was okay with that, and stopped feeling any pressure to force conversation between them after the first couple days of training together. They were both perceptive, and soon they could train for hours at a time with scarcely twenty words to one another.

However, in the last month Clint had noticed that there had been a gradual change in their dynamic. The silence wasn’t so frequent, and when he caught her in a good mood, there would even be some banter. She was whip-smart with bone-dry humor, and more often than not, their back and forth earned him a small smile that always disappeared before anyone else could see.

Their first mission had been domestic, Nevada, and they had flown back to New York that same day. When they arrived back at headquarters, Clint was a little exhausted from the two flights and the adrenaline crash, but he was feeling victorious. He felt so good, he had gone out on a limb- it was only 11 pm, after all.

“Hey, Romanoff” he called as Natasha started to make her way back to apartment. She turned, looking at him inquisitively.

“You want to come over and have a drink or something? Celebrate our one for one record?”

Natasha nodded, a small smirk on her face like there was a joke he was missing.

They walked into his apartment and she causally plopped onto the couch, putting her feet up on his coffee table as if she lived there. As he grabbed two beers from the fridge, Clint figured that he should probably be embarrassed by how untidy his apartment was at the moment, but Natasha hardly seemed to care.

Just as he had been about to hand her a beer, he got the joke. “Shit, you’re underage.” He remembered, and she smiled again, in that way of hers.

“I’m too young to have a beer with you but old enough for SHIELD to have wanted one of Hawkeye’s arrows through my head?” She asked wryly.

Clint sighed, shaking his head. “Alright, alright. You win.” He grudgingly handed her the bottle. Natasha looked smug as the cat who ate the canary as she twisted the cap off and promptly downed the entire bottle.

“You’re going to be the death of me, kid.” He said, taking a gulp of his own beer.

“I’m not a kid.” Natasha replied, completely serious.

“A nineteen-year-old is practically a kid.” Clint answered, rolling his eyes.

“I’m twenty.” She retorted, a smidge of indignation in her tone.

“Since when?” He realized he had no idea when her birthday was.

“Since three weeks ago. I don’t know my real birthday, only the year, so they just put down the day they let me out of that cell on my official documentation.” Had it really been over a year? Strange, Clint thought to himself.

“November twenty-eighth.” She added dryly “I’m a Sagittarius.”

That made Clint snort.

Then she pointedly asked, “Are how old are you, Agent Barton?”

“I’m twenty-seven.”

Natasha audibly scoffed. “How terribly old.”

“Watch it, Romanoff.” Clint teased “There’s a big difference between twenty and twenty-seven. You’re still a kid to me.”

“Is that why you wouldn’t fuck me? Because you consider me a child?” He felt his face turn red, knowing exactly what she was referring to: she had tried to seduce him the entire way from Budapest to New York when he had brought her in, for God knows what reason.

“No. I thought you were older.” He admitted.

“You don’t think I’m pretty?” Natasha demanded, her expression betraying her amusement at making him squirm.

“You can’t possibly think that- you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t have sex with you because you were brainwashed, and I had you in handcuffs! I would have been taking advantage of you!” Clint explained, exasperated.

He watched the gears turn in her head as she processed this for a moment, frowning. Before he could even protest, she snatched his beer right out of his hand and drank the rest. Her smirk suddenly returned. “Most beautiful woman? I thought I was a kid.”

Clint groaned, taking the empty bottles and throwing them away. He grabbed an apple from the fridge and then returned to the couch, where Natasha was somehow fast asleep. He stared at her for a moment then simply shook his head, grabbing a blanket and draping it over her. In hindsight, he really should have been more suspicious.

**********

It was two in the morning when Natasha decided that she couldn’t take it any longer. She _wanted_ him, in a way that was new and startling to her. He was handsome, yes, strong arms, charming smile. But that wasn’t why. He was kind of an asshole, but he was also kind and understanding. She had always trusted him to some extent after he saved her life, but now it was different. They had gone on a real mission together, albeit an easy one, and she had believed it when he said he had her back, that he would protect her.

She wanted him, and she now felt fairly certain that it was mutual. She removed her shoes, her pants, and the jacket she was wearing, leaving them on the couch, now clad in only a t-shirt, bra, and panties. Taking a deep breath, she walked into his bedroom, and slowly turned the covers down and slid into the bed next to Clint.

This woke him up, and he looked at her, clearly confused. She said nothing, watching as he took in what she was wearing, or rather, what she wasn’t, then got on top of him, legs straddling his waist. As if instinctually, he rested his hands on her thighs, looking up at her incredulously. Heart racing, she bent down and kissed him, quickly and sweetly, then sat back up, gauging his reaction, his face unreadable.

“I’m not brainwashed, and I’m not in handcuffs.” She whispered, by way of explanation, growing nervous the longer he took to respond. After an interminable pause, he flashed her a lopsided grin, throwing his hands up as if in surrender.

“You know what, Romanoff? Fuck it.” Her heart lurched as he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her down to him. He kissed her in a way that somehow felt decisive, and despite herself she moaned into his mouth when his hands found her hair, pulling just a little. She bit his bottom lip, letting her hands wander under his shirt, suddenly feeling the need to touch every part of him.

As her hands explored his chest, his back, his arms, his stomach, Natasha felt Clint growing harder beneath her and pushed her hips into his, making him groan. Suddenly she was flipped onto her back, his lips finding her neck as she grabbed the bottom of his shirt and pulled upwards. He broke contact with her only for a second as he yanked his shirt off, then his lips were at her ear, teeth gently pulling her earlobe. Natasha was vaguely aware that she moaned again but was distracted as Clint quickly removed her shirt.

He looked at her almost naked body with hunger in his eyes, and Natasha jolted as his expression sent horrible chills down her spine. She had received that look before, beginning with the male trainers in the Red Room, and later from her marks. Natasha remembered the harsh way they would touch her, manipulating her body like a doll, the pure revulsion she felt when they put their hands on her naked body. She had quickly learned to mask it with a smile, to fake pleasure like a fucking porn star, to detach herself from her body so she could pretend it was happening to someone else.

As the memories of the awful men before Clint who had given her that look overwhelmed her, she began to feel sick under the heavy body that was pinning her to the mattress. It’s Clint, she desperately tried to convince herself, he’s not like that, he won’t hurt me. Despite her best efforts, she felt her body stiffen and tears prick her eyes as terror washed over her.

Clint pushed himself up on his forearms, noticing something was wrong. He looked at her wide-eyed and promptly rolled off of her and sat up, giving her space.

She couldn’t breathe.

“Hey, hey” he whispered, looking vaguely panicked. “Did I do something wrong?”

Natasha shook her head violently, wanting to reassure him that it wasn’t his fault, but she was unable to speak.

“Can I- what can I do?” Clint stammered.

Natasha didn’t think, just threw herself into his lap, wrapping her arms and legs around his torso like a child, overwhelmed by the uncharacteristic need to be held.

“I’m sorry.” She felt herself choke out, pleading. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” And then she started to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave comments so I'm motivated to procrastinate my school work and write instead!


	5. 2007

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> light-hearted fluff chapter, with the obligatory 'Nastaha kicking the ass of male agents who are rude to her' bit , just because it's fun

**********

**SHIELD Headquarters, 2007**

Under the table, Natasha quietly unfolded the note that Clint had just passed her.

_I have to pee_

She casually glanced over at him, sitting in the seat beside her and fighting a smirk. Each month, all SHIELD Strike Teams gathered for a meeting, ran by Maria Hill. In these meetings, Hill went over the results of every Strike Team mission from the previous month, discussed rising threats that SHIELD was monitoring, announced any mandatory trainings that would be taking place, and, without fail, reprimanded the group for specific instances of “regulation noncompliance”. The meetings were obscenely long and mind-numbingly boring.

Under the guise of jotting down a mission recap, Natasha wrote back, and slid the paper over to him.

_I’m pretty sure that 4-hour meetings are a violation of the Convention against Torture_

Clint snorted, making several of the other Agents turn and look at him. He fake-coughed into his elbow as a lame attempt to cover it. Hill shot him a glare as she scanned the room, snapping “Hawkeye, cut it out” before resuming her monologue on the importance of paperwork being completed in a timely manner. Natasha avoided eye contact with Clint for the rest of the meeting, knowing any further disruptions would land him squarely on Hill’s naughty list, and he spent enough time there as is.

When they were dismissed twenty minutes later, Clint looked at her and grinned so widely that it made Natasha smile, shaking her head in mock exasperation. There was something very funny about two international spies and assassins who worked for a top-secret organization being unable to pass notes during a meeting without making a scene.

“Want to terrorize some rookies with me tomorrow?” Clint asked as they left the conference room.

She had been waiting for this. “Well, I suppose I can’t say no to you on your birthday.” Natasha replied innocently, looking at Clint with a doe-eyed expression.

Clint stopped walking, blinking at her in surprise. “How did you know? I purposefully have never told you!”

“Hacked Coulson’s computer last August. You can imagine my disappointment when I realized that your birthday had already passed.”

He punched her shoulder, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. Natasha was smug; getting under his skin was a favorite pastime of hers. “Save your strength for tomorrow, old man. I don’t want to outperform you too badly in front of the rookies.”

“Hey, be nice to me! It’s my birthday.” It was her turn to roll her eyes. They walked the rest of the way to SHIELD’s living quarters in comfortable silence, Clint giving her a salute as they went their separate ways when they reached her apartment.

Natasha stepped into her apartment, still incredibly impersonal despite the years she had lived there. The only things that she had ever gotten for her apartment was plain grey bedding and towels, basic kitchen utensils and a few dishes, and clothes hangers. Walking into her bedroom, she noted how pathetic it was: clothes that couldn’t be hung were folded on the floor of her closet, books that she had acquired were stacked large pile on the floor in the corner of the room. The walls were bare, and the lighting was harsh. Maybe it was time to make the apartment more habitable, now that she no longer lived in constant fear that SHIELD would have her killed, or that she would be forced to flee in the middle of the night.

Natasha pulled her phone out of her pocket and sent a message to one of the five numbers she had saved.

_Any chance you would help me get/ put together a bookshelf and a dresser?_

Not a minute later, she received a text.

_What’s a birthday without a trip to IKEA?_

By the time the returned to Headquarters, they had more apartment items that Natasha had intended, including a duvet and cover, a few pillows (Clint had insisted that having sheets, a blanket, and one pillow did not constitute having bedding), a rug, a toothbrush holder, of all things, and two lamps. And, of course, the bookshelf and dresser. Mission-oriented as ever, they took no time to rest after hauling everything inside, Clint getting to work right away on the dresser and Natasha on the shelf. Several hours and hundreds of swear words later, all of them said by Clint, Natasha’s apartment had become significantly nicer. Her bedroom looked like a real bedroom, and the rug and warm light from the lamps had made the main room of her apartment, the combination kitchen/living room, almost cozy.

Looking at the apartment made a lump form in Natasha’s throat: this place, SHIELD, really was her home, complete with an overpriced toothbrush holder in her bathroom and someone who would help her assemble furniture living a few doors down. For a moment, they both stood in the apartment, admiring their work, before Clint gave Natasha a long look, perhaps noticing that she was having a bit of a moment. He cleared his throat before saying “We did damn good, Romanoff.”

She shook herself out of the emotions that had come over her, before answering dryly “Of course we did, Barton. We’re Strike Team Fucking Delta.”

Clint genuinely laughed at that; the sound of his laugh made her feel warm inside, like she had drunk liquid sunshine. He always got a kick out of her swearing, for some reason. “That we are.” It looked as though he was thinking hard about something, then shook his head softly, more to himself than to her. “Okay, let’s call it a night. We have an early morning tomorrow, and I worry that if you don’t get your beauty sleep, you’ll actually bite a rookie’s head off.”

Admittedly, she was particularly disagreeable when she was tired. “Goodnight, Clint.”

“Goodnight, Natasha.” He started towards the door.

“And happy birthday!” She called after him as he was about to shut the door behind him. To her delight, he flipped her off, obvious affection in the obscene gesture.

**********

On most nights, beer was Clint’s drink of choice, but tonight, he went straight for the liquor. It was the only thing that seemed appropriate for drinking alone on one’s birthday, which he hated on principle. He had been so close to asking Natasha to come over for a drink, but when he thought of the last time that happened, he chickened out. Even so, it had been one of the best birthdays he had had in a while; not because he enjoyed God-awful meetings, driving through New York traffic, and assembling furniture, but because he was with a friend, a friend who had hacked their handler’s computer just to find out his birthday, violating at least three regulations.

It was still a little surreal to him that he spent a considerable amount of his free time with the Black Widow, a woman who had spent years at the top of SHIELD’s Global Threats list. It wasn’t a normal friendship, that was for certain. Somehow, their relationship managed to be simultaneously more intense and more distant than it ought to be for people who were friends and partners. It was best if he didn’t overanalyze that.

That night, he fell asleep tipsy, and he dreamed of Natasha. Best not to overanalyze that either.

At seven in the morning, she knocked on his door, hair in low ponytail, wearing loose athletic pants and a sports bra, sweatshirt unzipped. His eyes wandered for just a millisecond before he pulled them back up.

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “Barton, you’re as bad as the new recruits.” She pushed past him into his apartment, cheerfully kicking him in the shin as she went, and started his coffee pot without asking. She really was something else.

When Clint was dressed, and they were both adequately caffeinated an hour later, they made their way to the training room. They were twenty new recruits already waiting for them when they entered, nervous for the first day of practical training. Clint estimated that only four or five of them would stay at SHIELD longer than a year or so. There was a surprisingly high turnover rate for new agents: it was an intense job. He made his way to the center of the room, noticing the swiveling necks as Natasha followed behind him.

“Good morning. I’m Agent Barton, code-name Hawkeye. I’m in charge of your practical training. This is my partner, Agent Romanoff, code-name Black Widow. She’ll be assisting me with some of your training.” The rookies were completely silent; without a doubt, they already knew who he and Natasha were, reputation preceding them. “Today, we’re working on hand-to-hand combat. My hope is that you have a solid foundation already. I’ll be giving the floor to Agent Romanoff, who will be reviewing the basics before we get to practicing.” After she gave her brief lecture, they paired the rookies off.

“Now, before you practice sparring with one another, I’ll open it up to anyone who wants to take on Agent Romanoff. Anyone who can beat her gets the top ranking for hand-to-hand combat assessments.”

Three rookies, all male, raised their hands, volunteering. Clint pointed at the one who had raised his hand the fastest. “Okay, first up.”

The rookie, Edwards, if Clint remembered correctly, was confident as he strode up to the mat: the first one, usually the only one, to try it always was. “Ready?” Natasha asked. Edwards nodded, with- was that a wink? Natasha’s eyes glinted, but her face stayed completely neutral. It had definitely been a wink.

“Begin.” Clint called. Natasha fought dirty when she was irritated, and he found himself pitying Edwards, just a little. He was pretty good, and against most Agents, would have held his own. Unfortunately for him, Agent Romanoff wasn’t most Agents. She was making no offensive moves, simply dodging him, throwing him off his balance every time he lunged at her and showing how unthreatened she was. Edwards began to get frustrated, his movements getting sloppier. Clint knew she could have taken him down in the first five seconds, but she was biding her time, clearly going to go for the most humiliating defeat. Eventually, he stumbled, and she made her move. She launched herself at him, and then he was face down on the mat, arms twisted behind his back, Natasha on top of him, unperturbed. Clint winced a little in sympathy but waited to call it until Edwards stopped struggling.

“Good effort, Edwards.” Clint said as Natasha hopped off of him, looking positively bored. “Anyone else want to give it a go?” He asked, already knowing that there would be no other volunteers. “Alright then. Start practicing with your partner.”

When the training session was over, and the rookies had been dismissed to hit the showers, Clint and Natasha were almost out the door when one of the rookies called from behind them “Agent Romanoff?” The pair turned around in unison, as if both of them had been addressed. It was one of the women, showed a lot of promise, pretty. Natasha looked at her, expectantly. “I just wanted to say that I really admire you.” Natasha looked puzzled. The woman continued “Your scores on all the Academy exams are incredible.”

Clint watched, smiling, as Natasha ever so slightly turned the corners of her mouth upwards. “Thank you. I didn’t catch your name.”

“Brooks.”

“Do you have a piece of paper, Agent Brooks?”

The woman quickly procured a pen and paper from her bag. Natasha scrawled something down and handed it back to her. “My number. If you ever have any problems at SHIELD, let me know.” Clint was vaguely aware his mouth was now slightly agape.

Brooks beamed at both of them. “Thank you so much, Agent Romanoff.” Natasha nodded at her, a shadow of a smile of her face, and turned back towards the door, Clint following behind her hastily, in mild shock from witnessing that exchange. He was pretty sure that he had never seen Natasha be that nice to anyone other than him or Coulson. And even that was rare.

“Close your mouth, you’ll catch flies.” She remarked nonchalantly, without even looking at him.

He closed his mouth. “Better update your business cards. Natasha Romanoff, AKA Black Widow: Agent, Spy, Assassin, Ass-kicker, and now, Mentor.” He said it like a radio announcer, prompting an eye roll. 

“Shut up, Barton.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave comments so I'm motivated to procrastinate my school work and write instead!


	6. 2005

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh, the angst. 2 chapters in one day *again* because I keep writing out of the order I want to post these in. next is 2012, which may be a while because Avengers plot

**********

**Bangkok, Thailand, 2005**

Clint groaned into his pillow, the sheets already drenched in sweat, the product of being in Thailand in May. It was hot and he was pissed off- not a pleasant combination. Natasha was sitting on her bed reading, as if unphased by the sweltering heat, and had pushed her bed against the wall, as far away from his as was possible in the small safehouse. Looking at it made him feel defeated. This mission was a punishment, he knew it. Worse yet, he knew he kind of deserved it. Fucking Coulson.

Things changed, the night of he and Natasha’s first mission. He had spent countless hours kicking himself for the events of that night, for various reasons. First off, he never should have invited her to his apartment for a beer. The partnership was too new, and he had blurred professional boundaries too quickly. Second, he should never have said yes to her when she had crawled into his bed, a girl who was a teenager three weeks prior and was also his partner, who he would have to work with for the foreseeable future.

His biggest regret, however, was moving too quickly. In the heat of the moment, he had gotten carried away, and had forgotten that she likely had horrible formative experiences with sex. He should have put her in complete control, let her set the pace, let her undress herself and him, and let her decide how far they went and when. But he hadn’t done that. And sometimes, when he looked at her after that night, the guilt almost suffocated him.

She had fallen asleep in his arms once she stopped crying, and he had woken up alone. He had honestly expected that, and it didn’t bother him too much. But when he found her in the morning, in the gym, beating the ever-loving shit out of a punching bag, he had told her they needed to talk. Her response had stung.

“There’s nothing to discuss, it won’t be happening again. I apologize once more for disrupting your night. I think it’s best if we keep the partnership strictly professional from now on.” All of this she said without even a glance at him.

It felt like a slap. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever you want, Agent Romanoff.” He had agreed ruefully, storming out of the gym. Here was this woman who he had risked his whole career for, had defended countless times to Fury, whose couch he had slept on when she went weirdly catatonic every now and then, whom he had held for hours as she sobbed unconsolably, now shutting him out like it was nothing. Clint had felt betrayed.

During the months that followed, the interactions between them had been slightly tense, their conversations always coolly professional and kept as brief as possible. Until it had all come to a boil- well, until Clint had.

They had been in a debriefing for their most recent mission, one that had hinged on the Black Widow’s ability to charm and seduce men into spilling all their secrets, and then using said secrets to eliminate a target. As always, she had delivered: after only an hour in a bar with their potential informant, while wearing the shortest jean shorts Clint had ever seen, she had gotten a location out of him, allowing Clint to eliminate the target before sunrise. What he hadn’t known, until the debriefing, that is, is that while he was carrying out their main mission objective, the Black Widow had been slitting their informant’s throat behind the bar.

“You killed him-why?” He had demanded.

“Leaving him alive was risky. He may not have been as stupid as he looked. He could have talked.” She had said with a shrug, studying her polished nails as if she was bored.

“What could he have even said without incriminating himself?”

“I wasn’t going to leave it to chance.”

“No one’s in the wrong here.” Coulson had calmly interjected, trying to put an end to the bickering.

“Do you know what I think?” Clint had slammed his hands down onto the table, startling Natasha enough to make her look at him.

“What, Agent Barton? What do you think?” Her eyes were narrowed.

“I think that you killed him because you thought he was sleazy. You rubbed all over him in an outfit better suited for a Hooter’s-“

“Barton! Enough!” Coulson gripped his shoulder. Clint shrugged his hand off. Natasha was looking at him like a deer in headlights.

Months of anger and frustration were gushing out, and Clint felt like he couldn’t stop it. He realized he was full on yelling at her now, but he kept going. “I think that you killed him because you dangled the bait in front of him and he took it! You’re the fucking Black Widow- you used him up and then you got rid of him, your signature move!”

He tasted the words once they left his mouth, foul, bitter. He blanched, realizing the full weight of what he had just accused her of. He wanted to take it back, he needed to take it back. Natasha’s lip quivered for a moment as she stared at him, doe-eyed, and he watched in horror as tears began to stream down her face. She stood up abruptly and all but ran out of the debriefing room.

Coulson had looked at him with the most disappointed expression Clint had ever received in his life. “Low fucking blow, Barton.” Then he had turned on his heel, walking briskly, going after Natasha.

Clint and Natasha hadn’t spoken in the following week, and then they had been assigned to a mission in Bangkok. They didn’t speak on the flight, or on the drive to the safe house, or once they got to the safe house. Natasha wouldn’t even make eye contact with him anymore, as if they were back to the months after her deprogramming when she was terrified of everyone and everything.

And so Clint found himself sweating through his shirt, in an isolated safehouse, with a woman who surely despised him (and was fully capable of killing him and making it look like an accident). What could go wrong?

**********

All Natasha wanted was to go home- she briefly wondered when she had started thinking of SHIELD Headquarters as home, but that was a thought for another time. She had spent several hours the night before in Coulson’s office, begging him to not to make them take the Bangkok mission, obviously to no avail. Coulson didn’t know exactly what had happened between her and Clint, although he asked her each time that she visited his office, but he knew the part of the story that mattered: that she had made herself vulnerable to him, then panicked, then shut him out completely.

After Strike Team Delta’s first mission, and she and Clint essentially stopped speaking, she paid a visit to Coulson’s office, deciding that she needed a new ally, and that he was trustworthy enough. Coulson was obviously thrilled that she no longer regarded him as a hostile, and he turned out to be a great listener and an equally great talker, never running out of things to chat about when he saw that she needed company; he was kind to her, like Clint had been, and was more sympathetic towards her than she deserved.

They instituted a standing weekly morning meeting, just the two of them, going to the café across the street from Headquarters and talking over coffee and bagels. The first time they did this, Natasha was overwhelmed by the menu, never having tried anything other than plain drip coffee. Coulson had patiently explained what the different drinks were, ignoring the irritation of the customers in line behind them, and suggested a drink to start with, a latte. Each week, she tried a different coffee drink, and when she had gone through them all, she came to the conclusion that the one she liked the most was the first one she tried. That had made Coulson laugh.

When Clint had yelled at her at their most recent debriefing, Coulson had gone after her, knocking on her apartment door only a few minutes after she had closed the door behind her. She had been mortified that she had cried in front of him, losing her Black Widow mask in public, but she had reluctantly opened the door anyway. Without saying a word, he had enveloped her firmly in an embrace. She resisted and pulled away quickly, crossing the room and sitting on her couch. Coulson, unbothered, sat next to her, pulling a deck of cards from his jacket pocket. “If you want to talk, you can. Or we can play cards.” He taught her how to play Gin Rummy.

Coulson had assigned them this particular mission on purpose, it could have been done by a much less advanced Strike Team, as the mission description consisted mostly of waiting in a tiny safe house. Another Strike Team, Sierra, was performing surveillance on a militant group that had a base that could be reached on foot from the safehouse Clint and Natasha were in. Delta would wait for Sierra to give to go-ahead, then would infiltrate the base. The estimated timeframe: a few days to a few weeks. The hope must have been that the time alone would force her and Clint to make amends.

They had arrived in the evening, and had slept, comms units on full volume in case they were called. Natasha had pushed her bed away from the window, into the corner, only becoming aware after the fact that it looked as if she had been trying to separate herself from Clint. In the morning, they ate a breakfast of slightly crumbled protein bars and bottled water, facing away from each other on their respective beds. It was Clint that broke the silence.

“Alright, I can’t do this anymore.” They reluctantly turned to face one another, Clint tiredly running his hands through his hair. “Romanoff, I’m sorry for what I said during the debriefing. I overreacted because I was pissed at you for” he gestured to her in frustration “icing me out. The things I said were really shitty, and I didn’t mean them.”

The guilt and sadness on his face was genuine. She could tell. But she still hurt too much. “It’s fine.” Natasha stood up, walking to the bathroom.

“No.” He rose quickly, blocking her path.

Natasha felt her breathing change. She didn’t like being blocked from an exit, it made her feel cagey, nervous. “No?” She asked, keeping her voice steady despite her mounting panic.

“Sit down.”

She clenched her jaw, staring hard into his eyes, so startlingly blue.

He stared back.

It was Natasha who broke the gaze first, if only to get him out of her path to the door, and she sat back down on her bed quietly.

Clint followed suit. His eyes were a little softer now. “We can’t be partners like this. I don’t really get what happened last year, but it needs to be resolved now. The distance, ‘keeping it professional’, that sucked, but we were still a team in the field. I don’t know what we are right now, and honestly, I don’t trust you to have my back.”

Her breathing was returning to normal. He was right. They had to talk about it to continue to work together. Any sort of camaraderie they had had was probably broken beyond repair, but their professional relationship was salvageable. “You’re right.” She said simply.

He looked at her expectantly. “Talk.”

“I don’t know how.” It was a stupid way to phrase it, but Clint seemed to understand what she meant. Sharing feelings wasn’t exactly part of her Red Room training.

He learned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, completely attentive. “We have all day. Take your time”

“Okay.” She wracked her brain, trying to find a place to start, looking for the words. “That night, I wanted you.” He looked a little surprised at this, although the events of the night in question should have made it fairly obvious. “I had never tried to have sex before, not outside of a mission. You were kind to me. You’re handsome.”

His face had softened further, looking less like Hawkeye and more like the Clint she knew. Had known? She wasn’t sure.

“You looked at me, the way a man looks at a woman he wants to fuck. And I” she floundered for a moment “I thought of the men who had looked at me that way.” Her voice was shaking, and Clint’s brow was furrowed as he looked at her. “And I felt the way I had felt with them. I couldn’t control it and I didn’t think you would hurt me but”-

He held his hands up, motioning for her to stop. She scraped her nails along her arms, trying to anchor herself to reality, drawing blood as she went. “You don’t have to keep going. I know.” He said quietly.

Natasha nodded. He had guessed then, in the months since, why she had lost it the way she had. She wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or worse, but she couldn’t think about it because she had to keep going or she would never get it out. “I left when you fell asleep. I felt bad for doing that to you. For scaring you and for making you feel like a villain.”

Clint started to shake his head, then thought better of it. Keep going, Natasha told herself, don’t stop. “And I felt exposed, after you held me that night. It was too” she searched for second “intimate. I know I initiated it, but it was out of character.” He nodded encouragingly. Now she should apologize. “I’m sorry. I never should have put you in that position in the first place, but I should have explained it to you. I shouldn’t have shut down.”

Now for the part that had really been weighing on her. “What you said in the debriefing”-

Clint quickly interjected “I really didn’t mean it. I was wrong to accuse you of being ruthless enough to kill someone out of spite.”

“Let me finish please.” He nodded, looking appropriately abashed for interrupting her. “You were right about why I killed that informant.”

He was obviously taken aback by this admission. “I was-what?”

“He didn’t pose a real risk to the operation. I didn’t need to kill him.”

“So why did you?”

“Partially, habit. I never left potential loose ends before I worked for SHIELD.” She wished that this conversation was over. “I went to the bathroom of that bar to send you the location, and when I came out, he was tired of small-talk. He dragged me out into the alley behind the bar and pinned me against the wall, and I had to let him, or I’d blow the cover. When he started telling me all the things that he wanted to do to me, I slit his throat.”

“Natasha” he trailed off, uncertain. He never called her Natasha, it was always Romanoff or, sometimes, Widow. There was a lot that neither of them could say, but he seemed to understand. He let the word hang in the air for a moment before asking “So where do we go from here?” Tentatively, Clint walked across the room, and sat next to her on the bed.

“I liked what we had before.” She offered quietly.

His face twisted into a sad smile “Me too. It’ll take some time, but we’ll get there again.”

They both jumped as Clint’s phone rang, the ring set to an uncomfortably loud volume, and he sighed in exasperation as went to his bag and rummaged around for the phone. “Agent Barton.” He answered, listening for a response on the other end. “Coulson. What?” Clint replied sharply, frowning. “As you can see, I’m not dead. Thanks for checking in.” He hung up, throwing the phone onto his bed.

Natasha looked at him questioningly.

“Coulson wanted to make sure you didn’t kill me in my sleep.”

“That’s not to say I didn’t think about it.” She said lightly, unable to hold back a smile at his horrified expression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave comments so I'm motivated to procrastinate my school work and write instead!


	7. 2012

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> y'all already know what happens in 2012 ;)

**********

**New York City, 2012**

Natasha was beginning to realize that life was never going back to normal. Her life, her job, her relationships, all of those things had always been bizarre, but there was international assassin weird, and then there was superheroes and alien attacks weird. Everything had gone downhill after the Mexico City mission. First, they had separated her and Clint, for the first time in years, sending him to New Mexico to help Coulson deal with an alien hammer, and her to Malibu, to play sexy secretary for Tony Stark.

Stark was a narcissist and a pain in the ass, but there was a manner about him that had sometimes reminded her of Clint, something in his humor, his dislike of being told what to do, his impulsivity. The mild similarities had helped her performance, although Stark had seemed dead set on constantly reminding her of how different the two men really were. Clint would never treat the people who cared about him with such blatant disregard, and more importantly, Clint didn’t need an engineered metal suit to make him special. He had come from nothing, an ex-carnie with a bow and arrow who had become an esteemed member of an elite government agency, all due to his own merits. Stark was a trust fund brat who had been given every advantage and opportunity, and he still couldn’t manage to become a halfway decent man without Pepper Potts’s unending patience. Ultimately, Natasha had decided that Iron Man would be useful for Fury’s Avengers initiative, but Tony Stark would not be, although her recommendation didn’t matter in the end.

She hadn’t been able to contact Clint while they had been apart, and they had only had one day together before being separated again. Every Agent with level five clearance and higher had been called in to Headquarters for a meeting to discuss the ramifications of the most eventful week in SHIELD history. Dr. Banner, a lab rat gone rogue, had massively damaged Harlem in a gamma-fueled rage, Tony Stark had momentarily gone off the deep end, then pulled himself together enough to save civilians from drones led by a vengeful Russian in an imitation Iron Man suit at the Stark Expo, and then, to top it all off, an alien who seemed to be the Norse god Thor had lost his hammer, retrieved it, then fought some type of robot in a small town in New Mexico before returning back to wherever the hell he came from. It was nothing short of a miracle that Fury had yet to go into cardiac arrest.

The benefit to the nearly seven-hour long meeting was that when she and Clint finally made it to Natasha’s apartment, there was very little to discuss about the last couple weeks; fifteen minutes after they walked in the door, they were in her bed, her hands clutching the sheets, his lips on hers. It was everything she had been craving in their time apart. The next morning, Clint had woken up before her, going to his apartment to change and returning with coffee and bagels. If Natasha had known it would be the last time that they would be together for nearly a year, she would have pulled him back into bed and gone into work twenty minutes late without a care. Instead, they had simply eaten breakfast then left for Headquarters.

Once they arrived, the pair was almost instantly called into Coulson’s office. He had given them a sympathetic look as they sat down on the comfortable loveseat in his office, which she knew Coulson sometimes slept on during late nights at the office. “Barton, you’re leaving tonight. Undisclosed location, research facility.”

Clint clenched his jaw. “Do I look like a fucking researcher? Come on, Coulson, I just got here!”

“I know, it’s not my call. I’m sorry, but we need you on security. The research is highly classified, and Fury needs someone he can trust inside the facility to report to him directly.”

Natasha couldn’t believe he was leaving her again. She knew that every SHIELD Agent was going to be working overtime for a while, but she didn’t think they’d be separated again- they were Strike Team Delta, for fuck’s sake! “And what am I doing in the meantime, without my partner? Am I not trustworthy enough?” Natasha snapped, crossing her arms.

When Coulson looked at her, she could see how tired he was, prominent bags under his eyes, frown lines suddenly deep in his forehead. “It’s not a matter of being trustworthy; Fury has something else for you, a solo assignment. Barton is going to go pack, and you and I are going to chat with Fury in his office in fifteen minutes. What you do with those fifteen minutes is your personal business.” He checked his watch and picked up the coffee mug from his desk “I’m going to refill this. Barton, by the time I come back in here, you need to be on your way to your apartment.” With that, he gave them a knowing glance and walked out, shutting the door behind him.

The second the door was closed they were kissing each other hungrily, almost violently, tasting the desperation on each other’s lips. Eventually, they pulled away gasping. “I’ll talk to you, if I can. I won’t be undercover, so it should be okay.” Clint breathed, still holding her face in his hands. Natasha nodded, wanting to say that she would miss him, but afraid of sounding like an idiot. She was saved from responding when Coulson had opened the door, making them jump apart, like teenagers getting caught by a parent.

“Barton, out!” Coulson had said strictly, pointing towards the door, but his eyes gleamed with amusement as Clint scrambled to get out the door, giving her a quick, nervous, smile as a goodbye as he went. Natasha felt oddly bashful as she smoothed her hair and straightened her shirt, Coulson sipping his coffee and pretending not to notice. “Ready?” He asked after a moment, and she stood up. Before he turned the handle to leave, he faced her. “Romanoff” he started, eyes shining as he fought a smile. “If there are any unexplained stains on that loveseat, you’re both fired.” He couldn’t stifle his laughter at the face she made in response.

Clint hadn’t gone undercover, but she had, and as a result, there was no communication between them for all the months that they were separated. Natasha threw herself into work, putting her every thought into the mission and her cover, and not into how much she longed for Clint. She was being interrogated by the target, after a slight divergence from her original plan, when Coulson had called and pulled her out of the field. Years of perfecting the art of masking one’s emotions was almost not enough to keep Natasha from outwardly panicking when she heard Barton was missing. Retrieving Banner had been a blur, her only focus on Clint, terrified of what had been done to him, doing her best not to wonder if he was even still alive. Naïvely, she thought the situation couldn’t be worse.

It got distinctly worse. Watching Stark and Rogers have a dick-measuring contest was bad enough but getting chased by the hulked-out form of Dr. Banner in an aircraft had taken the cake for the most terror she had ever felt. She wasn’t used to fleeing instead of fighting, but against ‘the Hulk’ she was powerless to do anything but run.

Then it got worse again. As Thor took on Banner, she attempted to slow her heart rate back to normal and collect herself enough to face the others, when she heard it over the coms: Clint was on the Helicarrier. Natasha had to be the one to find him. She was probably the only person who wouldn’t shoot on sight, and she was definitely the only person who could neutralize him without a weapon. She followed the sounds of weapons firing and found him, creeping up behind him before attacking. He shot an arrow at her immediately, barely even looking at her, not caring who he killed. His eyes were cold, an eerie blue. They weren’t his eyes.

They had fought for practice frequently, but they never wanted to actually harm one another, just going for mild bruising. This time was different. Clint was strong in hand to hand and she was at a disadvantage- he was aiming to kill, and she was aiming to disarm. She knew this fight would hurt them later; she didn’t know how she would ever be able trust him enough to kiss him again, to be naked with him again, to sleep in the same bed with him again. But that was a problem for later, and if she wasn’t careful, he was going to kill her now. After a bit, the fight got dirty: he pulled her hair so hard she yelped, and she bit him in retaliation, drawing blood. The bite startled him, and she threw him backwards and knocking him against a railing, his head making a sickening ‘thunk’ as went down. He stood up slowly, not making a move to attack. She watched as the blue light faded from his eyes, and he seemed to see her for the first time.

“Natasha?” He asked, softly.

She punched his lights out.

**********

The only thing more surprising that having your brain commandeered by a god and only snapping out of it when your partner/lover nearly gave you a concussion was the fact that the newly assembled Avengers allowed him to join them after what happened on the Helicarrier. They had seemed to trust Natasha, which was unusual for people who didn’t know her well, but then again, these were unusual times. There wasn’t much time for talking after his “cognitive recalibration”, and Clint was glad about it; Natasha would prod him into talking about his feelings, and that’s the opposite of what Clint wanted to do. The second that it was all over, he had planned to drink himself stupid.

They fought the Chitauri and they won. He still didn’t know how. The odds were against them, who knows how many to one, but the Avengers actually saved the people of New York from an alien invasion, and then they ate shawarma. After eating enough for about twenty people, Stark gave the store owner an obscenely large check and they trudged out slowly, all of them limping.

“Hey, Spy Kids” Stark had remarked to him and Natasha “got a place to stay?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Natasha had answered stiffly, swiftly ending the conversation.

Thor and Banner were heading back to Stark tower with Tony, and Rogers was returning to his own apartment. When it was time for everyone to go their separate ways, there was an awkward pause. What was an appropriate goodbye for people you didn’t know well, but had arguably saved the world with? Naturally, Stark spoke up first.

“Well. Good game, everyone. We’ll be in touch.”

With that, they all nodded at one another, a few of them attempting a smile, and departed. It appeared that he and Natasha had done the same mental calculation, finding that his apartment was closer than hers, and they continued their walk in silence. With a couple blocks to go, he took her hand and squeezed. After a moment, she squeezed back. It had been their language for years now, a way to tell the other that they cared without saying a word. They held hands until they reached his apartment building.

When they finally got to his apartment, Clint collapsed on the floor of his living room. Everything hit him like a ton of bricks in that instant. The exhaustion, the pain, the shame and guilt. It was too much. He felt himself start to breathe too fast, too hard, and then Natasha was on the floor next to him, stroking his hair and nuzzling her face into his shoulder, just like he did for her when she was overwhelmed; the thought made his eyes fill with tears.

“Clint, I have to tell you something.” She whispered.

He didn’t answer, focusing on her touch.

“Coulson is dead. Loki killed him. It was a hero’s death.”

Clint was reduced from an almost thirty-five-year-old man to a six-year-old child, clutching Natasha to him as he fully broke down. She wrapped her arms around him, rubbing his back as sobs wracked his body. He realized he was crushing her and released his grip on her long enough to allow her to sit up and lean against the couch before he thew his arms around her neck, his body in her lap as he cried into her chest. Natasha gently rocked back and forth as she held him, whether consciously or not, he wasn’t sure, and murmured words to him in a language he didn’t understand, likely Russian. He was acutely aware of how much this position physically hurt, pulling on a couple places where he probably needed stitches, but the pain was grounding and the comfort of her body was worth it.

When he managed to stop crying, Clint thought about how funny they probably looked, their size difference in stark contrast with their current positioning, and he self-consciously untangled himself from her. Natasha reached out and touched his cheek before informing him “You need stitches.”

So, she stitched his shoulder and thigh as he sat on the couch, deciding he’d worry about the blood later. When she was done, he looked at her and simply said “I love you.” Saying that to Natasha for the first time should have filled him with panic, but in that moment, it was the easiest and most natural thing in the world to tell her, as if he had been doing it for years.

Natasha froze, swallowing hard. “I know.” She inhaled shakily. “I love you too.” Then they were kissing, far more aggressively than two people in their condition should have been doing anything. Clint pulled her down to lay on top of him on the couch, both of them groaning in pain as their bodies collided, making the pair grin at the inappropriateness of their timing. The kiss became gentler as they began to remove articles of filthy clothing, wincing at the effort but not about to let a myriad of injuries stop them.

The sex was slow, tender, and at times, excruciating. It made Clint feel like he wasn’t broken beyond repair, like he could eventually be put back together again. Saying “I love you”, the sex, it didn’t mean that things were okay between them, not by a long shot. Natasha took “trust issues” to new extremes, and he had attempted to kill her, and it had probably fucked her up pretty badly. But this time, neither of them were running away. And that was enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave comments so I'm motivated to procrastinate my school work and write instead!


	8. 2006

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is one of my favorite chapters so far- it's a long one with lots of mission-related antics

**********

**Monaco, 2006**

Clint had burst out laughing during the mission briefing. “A married couple? That’s a first.”

The typical mission set-up was to send Natasha in undercover to get the info and reel the target in, and then send Clint to either eliminate the target or provide back-up from a good vantage point. If they were both undercover, their covers weren’t usually acquainted, so they could be in different places. For this mission, however, they were targeting a fabulously wealthy man, a notorious arms dealer who would be on vacation with his wife, so posing as another married couple made the most sense- posing as Samuel and Norah Jacobs, to be more specific. 

Coulson had given him a _look_ and said “Yes, a married couple. And pack pajamas, Barton, we don’t need a repeat of Azerbaijan.” He had failed to inform Clint that the safehouse in Baku had security cameras in each room, and after the first night of the mission Clint had received a call from a cackling Maria Hill telling him it would be wise to stop sleeping in the nude during assignments. It had been mortifying. “Especially since a married couple only needs one bed.” Coulson added.

Clint felt his eyes bug out a little, and saw Natasha swallow a laugh beside him. “Does that scandalize you, Mr. Jacobs?” She asked coquettishly, batting her eyelashes at him.

Coulson smiled, shaking his head as he got his papers together to leave. “Behave, both of you, and good luck.”

Clint was honestly looking forward to the mission. The target would probably have bodyguards, sure, but by their standards, it was low risk; they got to play dress up with rich people and hang out by the coast of France, all on SHIELD’s dollar, a win in Clint’s book. It would also be interesting to see Natasha work up close and personal, to be a part of the performance instead of just watching it. In many ways, this mission was a departure from the norm, and Clint liked variety. The pair stayed in the room after Coulson left to discuss details, as the often did after a briefing. “Okay, how are we playing Samuel and Norah? What are they like? Do they secretly hate each other or are they genuinely in love?” Clint asked in a rush, unsuccessfully containing his enthusiasm.

Natasha looked pensive. “Hm. Well, we know that Samuel is in international business, and is very successful, so he puts in a lot of long hours at the office, brings the work home with him.” She was getting warmed up, her voice becoming slightly more animated. “His drive, his determination, they’re the first things about him that Norah fell in love with, but sometimes he’s dismissive of her and her feelings when he’s busy with work, and she’s been feeling neglected lately. Norah is privileged, sheltered, and would do anything to please and impress her husband. She’s very idealistic about love and is hoping the trip to Monaco will get her and Samuel out of their little marital slump.”

Clint had looked at her in admiration; she could flesh out a character so quickly, and when she assumed a cover in the field, she brought it to life, truly becoming someone else. In an alternate reality, Natasha would be an award-winning actress. They had spent about an hour after that discussing the logistics of the mission, different methods to isolate and eliminate the target, before heading to bed.

The pair had to become Samuel and Norah Jacobs at the airport the next morning, and even though they were on the job, Clint and Natasha were having far too much fun with their covers, each determined not to be outdone by the other. “Can I get you a coffee, darling?” Clint asked her when they arrived at their terminal, ready to play doting husband.

“That would be wonderful.” She gave him a wide smile and pulled a book out of her bag, _Pride and Prejudice_ ; Clint wasn’t sure if that was Norah’s pick or Natasha’s. After purchasing two black coffees, he grabbed a bunch of sugar packets and a stir stick, remembering that that woman had a major sweet tooth. When he returned, she greeted him with a radiant smile upon seeing the sugar packets in his hand.

“You remembered!” She chirped, kissing his cheek as he sat down. Clint felt his face flush red instantly, even though he had been expecting her to up the ante sooner or later. He needed to pull it together before they got anywhere near their target. Samuel Jacobs doesn’t blush when his wife of three years kisses his cheek in a crowded airport where no one is paying attention to them.

The flight was uneventful, both of them enjoying business class, a rare treat. When the plane landed, Natasha turned to him and said “I’m so glad we’re here, Sam. I think we needed to get away.” Then she kissed him on the cheek again, testing him, seeing if he could sell it any better than the first time.

Clint grinned this time, wanting to push it a bit further. “You’re holding out on me, baby.” He pressed a kiss to her lips that was probably more forceful than necessary. Natasha’s composed expression didn’t falter, but her eyes seemed to narrow, a clear, yet unspoken, “touché”.

They arrived at the swanky resort fairly jetlagged, neither in the mood to do any looking around. After obtaining their room key and having hotel staff bring their luggage to the room, they locked themselves in for the night. The suite was gorgeous, and just as Coulson had warned, had only one bed- because why would Norah and Samuel need two? Natasha generously let him take the first shower, and once he was clean, he pulled on a worn pair of blue plaid pajama pants and a t-shirt before trudging out. He slept shirtless a lot on missions, but tonight it was out of the question: their covers for this one would naturally blur the lines, and Clint wanted to keep them as clear as possible. As he was making a nest of pillows and a blanket on the floor, Natasha stepped out of the bathroom, hair dripping, wearing a blush-colored satin number that made his jaw actually drop.

“What the hell is that?” He asked indignantly. She was messing with him, trying to test him again.

Natasha looked at him in a wide-eyed innocent way that he just knew was an act. “This?” She did a little twirl, revealing even more of her bare thighs. “It’s a nightgown, Clint. I’m only following Coulson’s instructions, to bring pajamas.”

Clint scoffed at this. The so-called nightgown was short and looked expensive, lace along the neckline, thin satin straps running over the pale skin of her shoulders. The color looked great on her, and the whole thing was making his imagination go wild. Cool it, he needed to cool it. “Yeah, sure you are.” He grumbled, laying down and trying to get comfortable in his spot on the floor, putting the image of his partner out of his mind. Next thing he knew, she was standing over him.

“Get in the bed. It’s a king, there’s plenty of space for us both. Just stay on your side.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He said, closing his eyes. Looking at her again was making it worse.

“I am worried about it. Your back was sore for a week from sleeping on a couch, I don’t think sleeping on the floor would go much better. I need you at your sharpest for tomorrow, old man.” She crossed her arms impatiently.

Clint sighed. “Why do you always win?” He stood up and threw the pillows and blanket back onto the bed.

Natasha grinned at him like the Cheshire Cat and flopped onto the left side of the bed. “Happy wife, happy life.”

He snorted, walking around to the other side and climbing in. “Sleep well, Mrs. Jacobs.” Clint laid on his side, turning to face away from her, and half wondered if he should build a pillow wall between them. He decided that was childish and just hoped they wouldn’t wake up face to face.

Clint woke up to sunlight streaming in through the window and red hair tickling his nose. His grogginess dissipated quickly as he realized that he was curled around Natasha, her back against his chest, one of his arms slung across her body. Even more alarming was the fact that his dick was almost fully erect, and it was pressing against her. Clint prayed that she was still asleep, and he was about to start slowly moving away from her when Natasha swiveled her head around, wide-awake. “This is cozy.” She remarked coolly.

“Uh-“ Clint felt his face turn scarlet.

“You have three seconds before I castrate you.” It was said too evenly, and Clint was unsure if the threat was real.

He pushed his body backwards, splatting onto his back on the far side of the bed. Covering his face with his hands, he groaned, highly embarrassed with how the morning was going. “Sorry.” He said through his hands “I’m sleeping on the floor for the rest of the time we’re here, aren’t I?”

Natasha actually let out a small laugh. “Barton, you are _such_ a prude.” She rolled out of bed and gathered some things from her suitcase, then made her way to the bathroom. As she closed the door she called out “Besides, what kind of wife would I be, letting my husband sleep on the floor?” in the almost valley-girl-like voice she put on when she was being Norah. This trip was forcing their relationship into weird territory, allowing them to get away with being far too flirtatious, and his rational brain knew he should probably be concerned; his primal monkey brain, however, was thrilled with all the opportunities to get so close to the most beautiful woman he knew. 

**********

They were in dangerous waters already, and they hadn’t even been in Monaco for a day. The sexual tension was ridiculous, thanks in part to the married couple schtick, and Natasha wasn’t sure if they’d make it through the mission without doing something they’d regret. Although, she had to admit, it wasn't out of nowhere; hell, they had acted on it once before, until she had a meltdown, that is. Perhaps getting it out of their system wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Yes, Natasha had decided, as she took a much-needed cold shower after waking up to Clint’s erection against her ass, maybe getting it out of their system was what they needed to go back to normal.

Their opening with the target would arise at the enormous charity gala the resort was hosting that night, where it had been arranged that Norah and Samuel would be next to the target and his wife, Bill and Abigail Henderson. But it would be suspicious if they were never seen outside their room before the gala, and it would be nice to get out of the room and enjoy the trip for a bit. The spies did what people came to the resort to do: relax on the beach.

When they made it to the resort’s private stretch of oceanfront, to her surprise, Natasha spotted Henderson and his wife near the water. Clint had seen him at the same time she had, and they began looking for a spot near enough to possibly overhear bits of conversation but far away enough as to not be suspicious. They didn’t get much from this endeavor, as about fifteen minutes after they sat down and got comfortable, Henderson took a call and went inside.

Natasha took off the linen sundress she had thrown over her bikini and pulled a bottle of sunscreen from her bag, feeling Clint’s eyes all over her body. She was feeling downright _mischievous_ , and as there was nothing better to do, she decided to go with it, making a show of rubbing sunscreen on her legs, her arms, her shoulders, for his benefit. Then she turned to Clint, waving the bottle at him. “Babe, can you do my back?”

“Of course.” He answered easily, taking the bottle and sitting behind her. It was clear that he was taking his sweet time massaging it in, touching as much of her skin as possible, and she was actually disappointed when he stopped. He shot her a lopsided smirk as he went back to the beach chair he had rented. It seemed that their little game was escalating.

They spent most of the day reading on the beach, occasionally cooling off by splashing around in the ocean. Eventually, they decided it was dinner time, and grabbed a quick meal before returning to their room to get ready for their evening event. Clint had been unable to play off how he had ogled her when she had made her dramatic entrance into the bedroom once she was fully ready. She didn’t blame him one bit; the black, floor length, off the shoulder dress with a tasteful slit up the leg, paired with a red lip made her look like a noir femme fatale. And Natasha wasn’t ashamed to admit that she had eyed him up as well- the man looked damn good in a tux.

The pair had arrived at the gala, already populated with hundreds of disgustingly affluent couples, and had taken their seats next to the Hendersons, Bill and Abigail eager to talk to Samuel and Norah as they were the youngest couples at their table by a long shot. Natasha guessed that was by design as well, a nice touch by whichever SHIELD Agent had tampered with the guest list and the seating chart. She noticed the two men in the back of the ballroom whose eyes seemed to linger on their table, and she deduced that these were Bill’s bodyguards. Eventually, when Bill and Abigail went to dance, so did Samuel and Norah, and Natasha felt her heart race as Clint pulled her in close when they started to dance, their bodies fully pressed together. Clint brought his lips to her ear and whispered, “You look goddamn fantastic in that dress.” She couldn’t hold back a shiver.

“Why, Sam.” She returned, flashing bedroom eyes at him from beneath the false lashes that she had painstakingly glued on. “Maybe you could take it off of me later?” He had looked at her with lust in his eyes, but this time it didn’t scare her like it had two years ago in his apartment: it had just made her want him more. They continued dancing in weighted silence, knowing the conversation would have to be continued later.

The Hendersons and the Jacobs soon returned to the table, four of them chatted about the resort and about things to do in Monaco, until Samuel and Bill got to talking business, as they worked in the same industry. Clint had prepped extensively for this, and he carried the conversation easily, to Natasha’s relief. When the business talk began, Abigail excused herself, presumably to the ladies’ room. Natasha hoped that Clint saw the same opening that she did.

“Norah, sweetie, go and get us some drinks, eh?” Clint asked her, condescension in his tone, then turned to Henderson. “Are you a whiskey man? You seem like a whiskey man.” He, of course, already knew the man’s drink of choice from the incredibly extensive file that SHIELD had put together.

“I am!” Henderson replied, clapping Clint on the back. Natasha smiled sweetly at the two men, and headed towards the bar, clutch in hand. She ordered their two drinks, and as she waited, retrieved a tube of lipstick from her clutch and reapplied it. As she put the lipstick away, she took out the tablet that had been hidden in the cap. It resembled an Alka-Seltzer tablet, and was cleverly designed so that roughly two hours after ingestion, the drug would cause complete heart failure. It was virtually undetectable by most toxicology reports, and if she could slip it into his drink without being seen, their mission would be a success. When the bartender handed her the drinks, she noticed one of Henderson’s bodyguards looking dead at her. As she walked back to the table, tablet still not in the glass, she swerved, lightly colliding with a woman in a light blue gown.

“I’m so sorry!” Natasha gushed apologetically, dropping the tablet in the glass while concealed behind the woman in blue. She waved her off, and Natasha continued to the table, smug that neither of Henderson’s bodyguards had moved from the back wall. Bill and Samuel were in an animated conversation when she returned, looking like old friends. Clint was better at this than she had expected, truth be told, and she felt a strange swell of pride. She walked up behind the two men, rubbing against Henderson ever so slightly, just for fun, as she handed him his drink.

“Thank you, sweetheart” he said, smiling at her confidently and giving her an appreciative once-over. She gave him her flirtiest smile before handing the other glass to Clint, satisfied with the hint of jealousy in his eyes, and returning to her seat. Abigail returned soon after, just in time to hear several lengthy speeches from the organizers of the gala. The Hendersons decided to retire for the night once the speeches were over, Bill handing Samuel a business card and shaking hand his hand heartily before they left. Clint and Natasha waited a few minutes, then followed suit and left the gala.

Clint rolled his eyes as she locked the door of their room behind them, remarking “I hate rich people” as he removed his jacket. Then he walked over to her, getting very close, almost like he did when they were dancing. “Mission accomplished, I assume?”

“You have so little faith in me?” Natasha asked, cocking her head to the side.

“You know that’s not true.” Clint smiled, then his face tightened. “About earlier.” He swallowed. “I want to, you know I do. But, the last time…” he trailed off, then tried again “I don’t want to fuck up the partnership.”

“Then let’s not be partners tonight.” She said, putting her hands on his shoulders. His face betrayed his confusion. “Romanoff and Barton are friends, partners, and nothing can happen between them.” Natasha stepped closer to him, hearing him inhale sharply. “But Norah and Samuel Jacobs…” Clint’s smile returned, finally understanding what she meant. “They’re man and wife, after all.”

“Anything that happens tonight goes away when they do.” He said, his face now so close to hers’ that she could feel his breath. Suddenly, he pulled back a little and smirked. “You know, I’ve never role-played in bed before.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Take off your clothes, Mr. Jacobs.”

“Mrs. Jacobs, I’ll do anything you ask of me.” She knew he meant it. Throughout the night, he gave control over to her completely, relying on her to tell him what she wanted from him. Natasha kept waiting to panic, for fear to swallow her whole, but it never did: she really, truly, trusted him now.

When they returned to SHIELD Headquarters the next day, it was clear that sleeping together had been a good idea. The pair returned to their usual light, easy, banter, and Coulson even remarked to Natasha that she and Clint seemed to be on friendlier terms than ever. It wasn’t that the sexual tension was completely gone- more that it had been brought from a boil to a low simmer, no longer in danger of spilling over. That night had felt incredible, but Natasha was more than happy to put it behind them and never speak of it again, knowing that anything further could complicate their working and personal relationship. As good as the sex had been, it wasn’t better than getting to be Romanoff and Barton: it wasn’t better than having him as her friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Describing a mission is way more difficult than I anticipated but I hope I did alright! I'm so excited about the next chapter, which will establish how Clint and Nat became a ~thing~. Thank you for reading! The comments I've gotten have meant so much to me :)


	9. 2009

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some smut and the Barton farmhouse, naturally

**********

**Iowa, 2009**

It was the week before Christmas, and he and Natasha had been all but forced to take a vacation. Neither of them really took time off, so apparently the number of vacation days they had accrued was ridiculous. “Get out of New York” Coulson had told them “be anywhere but here for a while. I don’t want to see either of you again until sometime in January.” Clint didn’t want to take a vacation, because not working for the next several weeks would mean not seeing Natasha.

A few months after Clint had healed from the Berlin explosion, Natasha had told him that she was going to get a real apartment, that she needed part of her life to be outside of SHIELD. She hadn’t given him a reason, but Clint knew why. Seemingly out of nowhere, Fury had apparently decided that he trusted Natasha as much as he did Clint, and he had sent her on a few solo missions that were entirely confidential. When Natasha came back from these missions, she holed herself up in her apartment for a few days, not answering her door. She would emerge several days later completely fine but would refuse to discuss what happened. So, when she told him that she planned on getting some distance from Headquarters, Clint was in full support, and decided to do the same. He was thirty-two, after all, he may as well have a place to live that was bigger than a college dorm room. Natasha found an apartment on the Upper West side, and Clint had found one in Bed Stuy, both of them moving out of Headquarters at the start of 2009. It really was nice, to have more space, to get away from work, to find the best take-out joints in the neighborhood.

But it felt strange to not have Natasha in his kitchen every morning, drinking his coffee and eating his food without remorse. They hadn’t even been to each other’s new apartments. Living at Headquarters, the line between personal and professional was very thin, and going to each other’s apartments had been no big deal. But now that home and work were entirely separate and going over to each other’s apartments meant more than popping over on their way to the gym, Clint realized that being in each other’s homes was a place that they weren’t at and may never get to.

He missed her. He missed her so much. He still saw her almost every day, but seeing her 9-5 wasn’t the same as spending nearly all their free time together, like they had done ever since Berlin. This was why Clint had decided to ask her to come with him to Iowa, to the farmhouse.

He had bought the farmhouse that used to belong to his parents before he even joined SHIELD. Buying it had just made sense: it was absurdly cheap, a dilapidated foreclosure in the middle of nowhere, and he had wanted to have a place that belonged to him. Being there made him sad at first, and angry, but he could never stomach the idea of selling it. Clint had only been there a handful of times in the last ten years, mostly to make sure it hadn’t collapsed in on itself and was mildly habitable, but it had been a while since his last visit. He figured he may as well use the time off to fix it up as best he could, and rural Iowa certainly fit the bill for Coulson’s orders of “not New York.”

Clint had asked Natasha to come with him the moment they left Coulson’s office, and to his surprise, she had said yes automatically, giving Clint a sliver of hope that she had missed him as much as he had missed her. Just like that, two international spies found themselves in Clint’s piece of shit car, on a seventeen-hour road trip. They had met up at Headquarters at five in the morning, planning to make several food and fuel stops but to do the whole drive in one day, not stopping overnight. Clint did most of the driving, but every three-ish hours they would pull off and switch drivers to give his eyes a break.

Around six in the evening, Clint had dozed off while Natasha drove, but had woken up when she hit a pothole straight on. Blinking, he stretched his neck, stiff after sleeping in a crunched position, and looked at Natasha in the driver’s seat. She was humming along to the radio while eating sour gummy worms, and the sight made him grin. When she felt his eyes on her, she turned to him and asked “What?”

“Nothing.” He reconsidered. “It’s just that a lot has changed since Budapest.”

Natasha returned a small smile, looking back to the road. “Everything has changed. Six years is a long time.”

“Everything?” He asked, his heart beating a touch faster.

“Everything for me, at least. I had nothing when you brought me to SHIELD, not even a will to continue living. Now I have a home. I have a few people who may consider me more than a colleague. I have the freedom to choose what clothes to wear, what to eat.” She paused. “I have you.”

Clint reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. “From day one.”

When they made it to the farmhouse around one in the morning, they were both tired from the day on the road. After they brought their suitcases into the house, Clint went to the basement to turn the heat on, and discovered, to his horror, that the furnace was broken. Shit. It would have to wait until morning. He trudged back upstairs and found Natasha sitting at the kitchen table, scanning the room. The furniture was still the exact same from when he was a child. He should change that. “Bad news.”

She frowned, waiting for him to elaborate. “The furnace is broken. I’m sure I can fix it in the morning, but tonight it’ll be pretty cold.”

Natasha shrugged. “I’ll live, but I will have to use you as a space heater tonight.”

Clint smiled. “Deal.” They lugged their bags up the stairs to the largest bedroom (he tried his best not to think of it as his parents’ room) and he pulled a set of new sheets from his suitcase. Natasha took the sheets from him and started to make the bed, and Clint opened the heavy cedar chest at the foot of the bed, pulling out a few heavy blankets; they didn’t look to be moth-eaten and were only slightly musty, so he threw them on the bed.

He stripped his clothes off, wearing only his boxers, and Natasha did the same, throwing on a large t-shirt from her bag. They had been partners for far too long by this point to have any modesty left around one another, especially since the night they had slept together in Monaco. It was never discussed, but after that mission, on the occasions when they ended up having to share a bed over the years, Natasha would sleep wrapped in his arms. He supposed it was a security thing for them both: their job was fucking stressful, and it was comforting to have the warmth of her skin against his body when the opportunity arose, to know the person he trusted most was safe and beside him. This, however, would be the first time that they shared a bed outside of the field. It was only for the body heat, Clint reminded himself.

The pair got into bed under the thick blankets and moved closer to one another. But instead of turning away from him like she usually would when they slept like this, she snuggled into his chest, hitching one of her legs over his. Clint was surprised, but decided to go with it, sliding an arm under her to rest on her back. This was somehow a more intimate position than spooning, but it felt too good to risk ruining by bringing that up. He fell asleep quickly, warm despite the freezing temperature of the house.

When he woke up, he was alone and shivering. He pulled on some sweats, and made his way downstairs, knitting his eyebrows in confusion- was that the smell of coffee? Sure enough, there was Natasha in the kitchen, in leggings and a huge sweater that might have been his, cooking bacon and eggs, with coffee brewing in the ancient coffee pot. Clint needed to pinch himself to make sure this wasn’t some very nice dream.

Turning around from the stove, she smiled at his confusion and said “I woke up early and I was starving, so I drove around and found a grocery store. And don’t worry, I washed the dishes- they were disgusting.”

“I’m taking a vacation with you more often.” He said, punching her shoulder and smiling like an idiot as he grabbed two freshly washed mugs out of the sink. “Think our friends at work would believe me if I told them I took a vacation with the Black Widow and she made me breakfast?”

She scoffed. “No. Well, maybe. They already think we’re sleeping together.”

“We slept together last night. Ow!” Natasha whacked him with a spatula.

“You know what I mean, dumbass.”

Clint shrugged, pouring coffee into the mugs and adding cream and sugar to Natasha’s. “I’m just saying, they’re not completely off base.”

Natasha looked at him strangely for a moment, before turning off the stove and putting the eggs and bacon on two plates. “I suppose our partnership is…unconventional.” She placed the plates on the table, along with two clean forks.

“You’d be surprised.” He said conspiratorially as they sat down. “We’re far from the first set of partners to have a random one-night stand.”

“That’s not really what I was referring to.”

Clint smiled. “Yeah, I know. I guess unconventional people make unconventional partners.”

She smiled back, and they ate in comfortable silence.

**********

Natasha had missed Clint terribly since moving out of Headquarters, in a way that she acknowledged was more intense than the way one missed someone who was only a friend. After Berlin, their relationship had undergone yet another mutation of sorts after spending all day, every day together, and now, the time they spent apart from one another made Natasha feel like something was missing. Her new apartment was nice, but it was empty without Clint popping in several times a day, for no reason other than to bother her. She couldn’t shake the loneliness she felt when she was at home. When he had invited her to Iowa so enthusiastically, Natasha had been ecstatic: a few weeks of just her and Clint was exactly what she had been craving for the last several months.

“I’m just saying, they’re not completely off base.” He had remarked during breakfast. It was said in passing but was a spot-on observation. The speculation about them had become more rooted in truth the longer it went on, and if they were honest with themselves, they both knew the partnership had gone past friendship a long time ago. And pretending that it hadn’t, being unable to admit that they missed each other, it was only making them both unhappy. Clint would never make the first move, so she knew it would up to her if she wanted to change this.

After breakfast, Clint went down to the basement to fix the furnace, and Natasha wandered around the house, investigating every room thoroughly. He hadn’t told her much about his childhood, practically nothing other than the fact that this was the house where he lived with his parents before they died, and that his father hadn’t been a good one. Not prodding for details about each other’s pasts was an unspoken rule, so she hoped to figure something out from the house itself, as if the walls and carpets would whisper the house’s secrets to her. Unfortunately, any personal affects that might have been there seemed to have been packed away, so she didn’t glean much from this endeavor. All the furniture was old and dusty, and she vaguely wondered if it was the same as when he was a boy.

When she heard clomping footsteps, she walked down the stairs, finding Clint coming up from the basement and into the living room. “Fixed it!” He announced, looking rather proud of himself. Natasha hadn’t even noticed the sudden flow of warm air in the house.

“Finally. I was half-frozen.”

“No kidding. Your icicle-feet were on me all night.”

“At least _I_ don’t snore.” She playfully jabbed.

“Well, you’re lucky you won’t be needing a Hawkeye-shaped space heater tonight then.” He was joking, but the disappointment on his face as he said it was tangible.

Natasha felt her heart beat faster. Now was as good a time as any. “What if I still wanted one?” She ventured quietly, taking a few steps towards him.

Clint stared at her, taken off guard by her response. Surprise, then nervousness flashed across his face briefly before he controlled his expression. “Natasha I- I don’t know if that would be wise. If we want to keep this to…just friends.”

Sometimes she wondered how a person could be so analytical, so skilled, yet so dense? But then again, analytical and skilled was Hawkeye, and this was pure Clint Barton. “Clint. Are you seriously going to make me say it?” She folded her arms.

When he spoke again it was almost in a whisper. “If you don’t say it, I’m going to keep telling myself that I’m reading too far into things, that I’m projecting.”

Natasha closed the distance between them and took his face in her hands, enunciating every word as clearly as possible. “I don’t want to keep trying to be ‘just friends’ anymore.”

“Thank God.” He whispered, putting his hands on her waist and kissing her, nearly crushing her up against him. Natasha was convinced nothing had ever felt better.

When they came up for air, she informed him with a smirk “I’m not having sex with you on that gross couch.”

“So, you do plan on having sex with me, then?” She didn’t dignify that with a response, and he grinned and took her hand, nearly dragging her up the stairs and into the master bedroom. Once inside, their lips found each other again, but it quickly became apparent that he was going to wait for her to escalate this, just like in Monaco. While Natasha appreciated the respect of her boundaries more than she could say, she felt ready for him to take more control this time. He would never hurt her. She broke the kiss and looked into his eyes.

“I want you to take the lead. You don’t need to treat me like I’m breakable. If I want you to slow down, I’ll tell you.”

“Promise?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Promise.” That was all it took. Hand resting on the back of her neck, he pushed her up against the wall, albeit gently, his mouth already at her throat. She let out a small moan in response, hooking a leg around his hip and wrapping her arms around him to hold herself steady, holding on to his shoulders. Clint’s hands were under her sweater now, skimming over her bra, brushing her nipples until she moaned again, before cupping her breasts more firmly as he kissed her with less restraint than before. Their shirts came off in a breathless pause between kisses, then his lips were on hers, insistent, hands on the wall behind her to support him as he leaned against her. Natasha rested her hands on the waistband of his pants, dipping her thumbs underneath it to touch the bare skin.

She unhooked her leg from his waist and started to kiss his neck, before working her way down his body. Her mouth went to his shoulders, moved to his chest, and finally, found his incredibly sculpted abs as she began to kneel. Clint’s eyes had been closed in enjoyment, but they opened reluctantly when her lips went below his navel. He touched her cheek with one hand.

“You don’t have to. I don’t expect that of you.” She hadn’t done this in Monaco, the very thought of it had made her uncomfortable. Clint had never even questioned why she didn’t reciprocate after he had gone down on her then (enthusiastically, she might add), perhaps almost expecting her to have bad associations with it. But his time, she wanted to do this for him, to show him how much she wanted him. And selfishly, she wanted to have more pleasant experiences associated with the act.

“I want to.” Natasha told him firmly, looking deep into his eyes. They really were the most beautiful blue she had ever seen. Taking his hand away from her face, he smiled a little and nodded. She pulled down his pants and boxers in one go and gave him a moment to step out of them before peppering kisses on his hips, down to his inner thighs, and eventually, on the head of his cock. He exhaled sharply as her lips wrapped around him, slowly taking him into her mouth and beginning to move her lips up and down the shaft.

“Nat” he breathed, his eyes remaining glued to her, obviously liking the view. She picked up her pace and began to suck, the sounds Clint made adding to the growing wetness she felt collecting between her legs. Not much time elapsed before he grabbed her chin and tugged her up to a standing position. “You’re too good at that” He smiled sheepishly, kissing her deeply “I wasn’t going to last very long.”

That remark made her happy, and she kissed him back, biting his lower lip as she did so. Clint turned them around and walked them backwards without breaking the kiss, until the back of her legs touched the edge of the bed. Natasha hopped on the bed and laid back, Clint following her down and lying on top of her, careful to keep most of his weight on his forearms. He kissed her forehead lightly before reaching around and unhooking her bra, without fumbling at all- impressive, she had to admit, the clasp on that one was tiny- then knelt on the ground at the foot of the bed. Clint arranged her body so that her legs hung off the edge of the bed, and she took a breath in anticipation. Peeling off her leggings and panties, he took his time, pressing his lips to each inch of skin that was revealed as he did so, from her thighs to her ankles. It was a gesture so tender, so caring, that Natasha felt a lump form in her throat.

Clint’s hands snaked back up her legs to her hips, and with a feather light touch, he stroked her very slick area with two calloused fingers. She felt her eyes practically roll back in her head, and he chuckled affectionately in response. While making small, consistent circles around her clit, and lowered his mouth to her, teasing a bit before burying his tongue inside her, causing her to knot her hands in his hair. Natasha let herself relax into him and just enjoy it, reminding herself to stay present, not to get in her head about it. Eventually, she felt the pleasure mounting to almost more than she could bear, and she quickly became impatient.

“Clint” she moaned. “Please.”

He raised his head, looking at her with a smirk, without ceasing the movement on her clit. “Please what?”

“I need you. Inside me. Now” She ordered.

“Yes ma’am.” He got onto the bed and positioned his body directly over her, lining himself up with her entrance before looking at her for one last cue that she wanted it. Natasha was mildly embarrassed as she felt herself practically whine in anticipation, then gasp as he entered her. At first, the pace he set was so painfully slow and careful, it was as if he was still expecting her to break down at any moment. She looked up at Clint with exasperation, and he laughed before bending down to kiss her nose. “Okay, okay.” Her heart swelled with affection.

His thrusts became harder and faster, and when she wrapped her legs around him to take him deeper, every stroke hit exactly the right spot, that feeling in the pit of her stomach still building. Natasha was vaguely aware that she was making a lot of noise now, but was too far gone to care, digging her nails into Clint’s back with one hand as she played with one of her nipples with the other, pinching just a little. It seemed that his self-control was waning as he started fucking her harder, without concern, bottoming out each time. Natasha knew he was as close to climaxing as she was.

“Don’t stop” she pleaded breathlessly, bracing herself.

“Come for me” Clint told her, looking at her like she was the only person on the planet. The sound of his voice, rough and commanding, was all she needed, and she came, gripping his biceps so tightly that she would probably leave a mark. The power of it was overwhelming, and she only half-noticed when he finished soon after, the feeling of her pulsating around him pushing him over the edge.

They collapsed in a tangle of body parts, Natasha not relinquishing her hold on him as she rode out the intense wave of feelings the orgasm had brought. When she came back down to earth, she smiled as Clint tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, giving the tip of her ear a tiny peck. There was nothing to say that they hadn’t just told one another, so they simply lay there, processing what had just happened, and realizing that they had now gone past the point of no return as far as friendship was concerned. This worried Natasha, but it wasn’t like it was a sudden change. This had been years in the making.

“You know” he said softly, after what felt like an eternity “Coulson was right. We needed a vacation.”

She hummed in agreement, before adding “Clint? New rule: our boss is _not_ an appropriate topic for pillow talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave comments so I'm motivated to procrastinate my school work and write instead!


	10. 2010

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a big, slightly violent argument between our lovebirds because this fic needed more angst + the dreaded 'what are we' conversation

**********

**New York City, 2010**

Natasha shouldn’t have thrown the hairdryer at him, in hindsight. But at the time, she had launched it at Clint’s head without a second thought, because in that moment, the only thing she could think about was the fact that she was _angry_. He ducked right before the hair dryer could hit him square in the forehead, leaving a sizeable dent in the wall behind him instead of his face.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He demanded, incredulous, stalking towards her from across the room.

“You tell me. You just spent the last few minutes implying I’m a slut with no moral compass.” Natasha snapped bitterly.

Clint almost growled in frustration. “Okay, truce, I’m sorry. Can we please try to have an adult discussion here?”

“What else could I possibly have to say to you?” Calm down. Unclench your firsts, Natasha. Count to ten. She backed herself into the corner of the room, and he followed her.

“I just want to understand why. You’re the most highly trained person I know, you don’t need to do _that_ to complete missions successfully.”

She didn’t answer.

“Why did you even defect to SHIELD then? I thought the entire point was to change the way you did this job.” Clint was too close to her, and it was making her feel trapped.

“You’re right: maybe you should have just taken the shot.” She suggested coldly. At least he had the decency to look horrified.

“How could you even say that to me?”

“Really? You’re going to play the victim?”

“Like you do?”

She recoiled. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Clint laughed. “No? One traumatized person to another, I think I might.”

Natasha grit her teeth. “No, you don’t. Do you think that just because Daddy used to get drunk and hit you”-

Her head smacked against the wall. She blinked, surprise mixing with pain. He had pushed her.

Clint had blanched. “Natasha, I’m sorry.”

“Get out.” She said, holding her voice steady.

“Don’t.” He didn’t dare reach out to touch her.

Natasha grabbed her gun from the edge of the dresser, pressing the muzzle to Clint’s chest, her hand shaking wildly. Without flinching or breaking eye contact, he simply knocked it from her hand, as easily as someone would swat a fly. He turned his back to her and left, closing the door behind him quietly.

**********

The argument had started when Clint had learned more than he should have about the solo missions that Fury had sent Natasha on. The pair had been at her apartment, laying low and staying away from SHIELD for a few days after a mission had gone seriously wrong. Neither of them had been injured, but covers had been blown, equipment had been damaged, and people had been shot in broad daylight, the whole kit and caboodle.

Natasha had fallen asleep early, but Clint was feeling restless, so he went to into the living room, intending on finding a book to read. Admittedly, he started snooping (look, the woman was still a mystery, even to him) and he came upon a SHIELD file tucked inside a desk drawer. He started to skim through the papers, then a couple of words caught his attention: “Romanoff”, “bedroom”, “target”, “child”. Clint read the file more closely, becoming increasingly pissed off with each word. When he decided he had read enough, he stormed back into Natasha’s bedroom, file in hand, not giving a damn that she was asleep and exhausted. She woke up with a start as he stomped in.

“What the hell is this?” He held up the file.

“You shouldn’t have read that.” She offered flatly, sitting up and folding her legs under her on the edge of the bed.

Clint was at a loss. “How are you okay with this?”

“Come on, Clint, don’t act so principled. SHIELD’s not ‘the good guys’, it’s ‘the better guys’. You and I know that, more than anyone.” Natasha had a point. SHIELD Strike Team missions weren’t always saving hostages and eliminating targets who were objectively morally repugnant; nearly as often, they interfered in international affairs, helped destabilize governments, or stoked political fires. It crossed into grey territory sometimes, but still, this?

“The target isn’t the only thing I have problems with. The methods…”

Clint could tell she had been analyzing him since he walked in the room, and a look of clarity crossed her face at these words. “So _that’s_ what this is about.”

“Yes- well, no.” He sputtered. “It’s not the only thing, but yeah, let’s talk about that. It’s really fucked up that Fury has you actually sleeping with targets. SHIELD isn’t supposed to cross that line- get right up to it, sure, even stand on it, but not cross it.”

Natasha shrugged. “SHIELD isn’t supposed to use waterboarding either, but my nightmares after ‘deprogramming’ would suggest otherwise.” It was said with a wry smile that he didn’t return, making her frown. “I’m not sure what you want me to say about it, and you shouldn’t even know any of this anyway. I have a specific skillset and Fury wanted to make use of it. I don’t have to like it to agree to it. It’s only been for a couple of missions.”

Clint thought back to a conversation he had overheard between Fury and Hill once. “Agent Romanoff is comfortable with _everything_.” Fury had said knowingly. Clint felt his blood begin to boil.

Her eyes narrowed at him. “But is it the ethics you’re concerned with? Or are you seeing green, Agent Barton?”

“You think that the problem I have with a mission where you fucked a married, American government official, before murdering him in his bed, while his _children_ slept a couple rooms away, is that I’m jealous?” He shook his head in disbelief. “I know your moral compass doesn’t always point north, but Jesus, Natasha.” Clint suddenly felt in the mood for a real fight. Although yes, he was also jealous. They had never defined whatever they were, never laid any ground-rules about not having sex with other people, but it still stung.

She got up from the bed, slinking over to him with an expression that wasn’t Natasha, that was purely Black Widow. Putting an arm on the wall behind him getting very close, she almost taunted him. “Are you certain? That the thing bothering you isn’t the thought of me naked in the arms of another man?”

That was uncalled for, and she damn well knew it; she was uneasy with the conversation, possibly a bit guilty, and was trying to push his buttons in order to change the subject, to make him angrier. It was working. “Stop it. Don’t try and use the Widow on me. You want to play pretend, Natasha? Why don’t you pretend you actually know how to be honest about things that make you uncomfortable?”

Natasha was silent, Widow persona dropped as quickly as she put it on, and she crossed to the other side of the room and leaned on her dresser, looking deflated.

Clint knew he should go home, come back tomorrow once they both had a chance to think things through. But they were too far into it, and he wanted answers right then and there. He pushed harder this time. “Come on, talk to me. That’s what your whole game is, right? Prying things out of people, winning them over with your…it is with your words, right?” He feigned confusion as an ice-cold glare spread across Natasha’s face. Another face that usually belonged to the Widow. “Your charisma and charm? No that’s not it either.”

“Say whatever you want. I’m very effective in the field.”

Clint scoffed, putting the final nail in the coffin without a second thought. “Of course, you are!” He gestured to her. “Great ass, nice tits- that’s all you need, for the kind of _espionage_ you’ve been doing!”

He narrowly avoided the hair dryer that flew at his head.

**********

Only a few minutes after Clint had left her bedroom, Natasha wiped the hot tears from her cheeks and called his name in a thick, choked voice. She didn’t know whether or not to expect an answer: if they had been at his apartment instead of hers, she would have gone straight home. But then again, he had never favored running away as much as she did, so she wasn’t shocked when the doorhandle turned and he walked in cautiously. Clint’s face looked suspiciously like he may have been crying too, but she decided to keep that to herself. He perched on the bed, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice, and she remained on the floor in the corner of the room. No exchange of feelings has ever been as painful as their forced heart to heart in Thailand all those years ago, after their months of silence and the subsequent fight, but this one was shaping up to be just as difficult to navigate. Expressing emotion would never be in her nature, no matter how much she wished she was different.

She knew she should be the one to start. “There’s a reason why I avoid you when I’ve come back from a solo mission. It’s not just because I’m trying to keep secrets from you, although I’m doing that too. I can’t be around you after those assignments. It makes me feel guilty.” She was tiptoeing around what she wanted to say, and he called her on it.

“What do you feel guilty about?” Clint prompted.

“They’re underhanded operations. I don’t feel like I’m protecting anyone or doing something for the greater good, or whatever SHIELD is supposed to be about. I feel like I’m furthering someone’s agenda, and I’m not sure whose.” She swallowed, and he nodded encouragingly. “And I thought the same thing you did, that actually sleeping with targets wasn’t SHIELD’s MO. It’s confusing. But even though I don’t like doing it, I know how to put my personal feelings aside until a job is finished. And ultimately, I trust Fury when he says a mission is important.” Clint seemed to ponder this. “But I also feel guilty because it makes me feel like I’m being disloyal. To you. We don’t keep secrets like that. And I know we never discussed exclusivity but…”

He took a deep breath. “It’s hard for me to be okay with you doing this kind of shit. You may be good at it, but it comes at a cost, Nat. I’ve seen the way assignments like these have hurt you, the way it consumes you once the mission is over and the adrenaline is gone.” Clint got off the bed and sat on the floor, putting himself on her level but still several feet away from her. “But you were right. I also don’t like you being with anyone else.”

Natasha felt like an idiot. She honestly hadn’t even considered that he would get upset because he was worried about her. It was still so strange, having someone care about her feelings, about whether or not a mission took something from her. “Would it help if I told you it’s nothing like it is with you?”

“Depends on how you mean it.” There was a ghost of a smile there.

“When it’s for a mission, it’s like a performance. I’m not doing it as myself, I’m doing it as the Widow. There’s no pleasure in it, it’s a means to an end.” It was a nicer way of saying that she had learned early on how to dissociate during sex, how to remove Natasha from the experience and leave the Widow in her place. But that explanation would probably just upset Clint again, or worse, make him pity her.

“You must be better at being the Widow in bed than I was at being Samuel Jacobs with you.” She almost laughed.

“Want to know a secret?”

He made a spectacle of looking around the room as if checking for hidden cameras and leaning towards her attentively.

“I’ve never been able to be anyone other than Natasha when it’s you and I.”

There it was, a real Clint Barton smile. “Good. I’ve never wanted you to be anyone else.” Unable to help herself, she went to him, sitting in his lap and facing him with her legs loosely around his torso. He kissed her, with more gentleness than most people would expect Hawkeye to be capable of.

After a moment he pulled back and sighed. “We can’t be done talking about this. We need to communicate like real people do, and not just ignore everything that happened.”

Natasha nodded reluctantly. “You’re right.”

“I don’t get mad all that often, you know that. But when I do, sometimes I can get out of control. I know you were afraid to tell me about the missions because you thought I’d get mad and judge you. And that’s what I did.” He looked horribly uncomfortable. “And I _pushed_ you. I mean, what the hell?”

She rolled her eyes. “I tried to decapitate you with a hairdryer first. And afterwards I pulled a gun on you. Call it even.” He was about to respond but stopped himself as she kissed his cheek. “But I’m sorry. For the threats on your life, and for trying to get under your skin to avoid talking about the missions. For bringing up your father.”

The anger was all gone from his eyes, letting Natasha know that she had already been forgiven. “I’m sorry too. For saying you have nice tits. They’re better than nice: they’re fantastic.” That made her laugh.

“Arguments sound so ridiculous after the fact. Especially ones that are that… explosive.” She mused as Clint brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. 

“Sweetheart, we are two dangerous, antisocial orphans who have made careers out of lying and killing and keeping secrets. I would expect nothing less than horribly dysfunctional arguments from us.”

He was right. Emotions and candor weren’t their strong suits. They didn’t know how to be honest about things that upset them until it was unavoidable, and until they had already hurt each other. “I know, but I don’t want us to fight like that again.” She admitted. “If every time we get mad at each other, we hurl our worst insults until it escalates to physical violence, one of us is legitimately going to end up in a body bag. And it’ll probably be you.”

Clint studied her for a minute. “Probably. What do we do about it?”

Hesitating, she ventured “We could start by taking some of Coulson’s advice. Maybe check out some of the world class psychologists we have access to as SHIELD employees, see if they could help? And not lie to them, like we do during psych evals?”

He pretended to be horrified. “You want to see a shrink? Who are you, and what have done with Agent Romanoff?” Upon seeing her expression, he got serious again. “Okay. I’m game if you are. There are probably some wounds that have been festering for too long.”

“If it’s a complete waste of time, I’ll owe you ten dollars.”

“Excellent.”

Looking into his eyes, she could see that there was still an unanswered question. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

Clint cupped her face in his hands, asking simply “What are we doing here, Nat?”

“Besides violating the strict anti-fraternization policy of the very secret agency that we work for?” He rewarded this attempt to lighten the mood with a soft smile. “This has been ‘something’ for almost a year. It could be time to try and define it.”

“What do you want us to be? What am I to you?”

Natasha didn’t know why she was the one being put on the spot, but she humored him. “You’re the person who I entrust with my life on a regular basis and the only person who knows me. I hate being apart from you for too long and I care about you so much that it scares me. There’s no one else I want like I want you. What does that make us?”

Chuckling, he answered “I don’t think there’s a neat label for that. But ditto.” She glared at him. “Ooh, scary.” Clint kissed the tip of her nose, his eyes full of adoration despite her scowl. “What we have is very weird and indescribable, but I suppose it’s an exclusive, romantic relationship. We seem to be, for all intents and purposes ‘together’. Unless you have a problem with that?”

She tried it out. “In a relationship…that works.” Making a face and scrunching her nose, she added “But I will never refer to you as ‘my boyfriend’.”

“Can I call you my girlfriend?”

“Not in public.”

He grinned at that. “Do we have to go on dates now? Am I supposed to give you things on Christmas and Valentine’s Day?”

Groaning, she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Nothing needs to change except the fact that we’re acknowledging what it is to one another. As long as we work together, it’ll have to stay private, anyway. People already have their suspicions, but we need to keep up plausible deniability.”

“That’s true.” Clint conceded. “So, no bouquets of flowers delivered to your office?”

“Try it and you’ll never see these ‘fantastic tits’ again.”

“My girlfriend is kind of mean.” He complained, trailing kisses along her jaw, down her neck.

Natasha smiled, tilting her head back. “My boyfri- nope, can’t do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all there is only one chapter left and I'm already in my feelings about it :.)
> 
> please leave some comments to motivate me to procrastinate my schoolwork and write instead!


	11. 2013

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a wrap-up of a decade. it's sappy, and I love it very much

**********

**New York City, 2013**

“Hey Romanoff, let’s play ‘I Spy’.” Clint had spent half an hour waiting on the rooftop, and he was getting bored.

It was Maria Hill and not Natasha that answered. “Barton, shut the fuck up.”

“Hill, congratulations. You’ve hurt my feelings.”

“I spy with my little eye…something green.” Usually Natasha didn’t engage when he was trying to get a rise out of Hill, but she was in an especially good mood today.

“Is it grass?”

“I’m inside a windowless hallway.”

“Okay, good point. Is it a tree?”

“I’m going to fire you both.” That was Hill again.

“You people wouldn’t last a week without us.”

Before Hill had the chance to quip back, Romanoff interjected. “Argue later. All units: we’re walking.”

Clint refocused his attention on the set of double doors across the street from his rooftop perch. Any moment now, Natasha would walk through them, in a rather Natalie Rushman-like getup, alongside a Senator set to deliver a speech outside the building. SHIELD had picked up on some chatter about an assassination taking place today, so they were collaborating with the NYPD, letting the police handle any arrests and most of the paperwork. Clint was one of three snipers, with several Agents on the ground, Hill in a mobile command center with the tech people, and Natasha posted right next to the Senator. He tried not to think about the very real possibility of her taking a bullet.

As she walked through the doors, Clint couldn’t help but notice how nice her ass looked in that skirt. He scanned the crowd of reporters and other civilians gathered in front of the building, looking for anything unusual as the Senator stepped up to the podium, shuffling her notecards. Natasha mostly kept her gaze focused on the Senator, but he noticed when she subtly glanced up to the rooftop that she knew he was on, as if for reassurance that he had her six. She didn’t need to worry- he always did.

Roughly halfway through the speech, Clint noticed about eight men, dressed like reporters, fidgeting along the outside edges of the crowd. He couldn’t tell if they were armed or not. Seemingly, he noticed them at the same time that one of the Agents on the ground did, Brooks.

“Suspicious movement around the perimeter- snipers, be ready.” As he had predicted while she was a rookie, Brooks had turned out to be an excellent Agent. She and Natasha still had lunch together once a month, schedule permitting.

All at once, the eight men drew their weapons, and gunshots rang out. Natasha dove before anyone even fired, tackling the Senator behind the podium and shielding the woman’s body with her own. Clint picked off two of the men, and the other snipers got two more, wiping out half the group within seconds. He saw three others drop their weapons, putting their hands up in fear at the sight of their dead associates. That left one more- there was another gunshot. In the chaos, the eighth man had managed to sneak towards the Senator and fire. Natasha sprang up from the ground and attacked him, managing to disarm him reasonably quickly for someone wearing heels. It was only after she had knocked him unconscious with a well-timed knee to the face that he saw the blood running down her arm.

As NYPD swarmed the scene, making barriers, getting the few injured civilians into ambulances, and putting the four surviving men into the back of cruisers, Clint raced down eleven flights of stairs, running into people without apologizing as he hurried across the street to get to Natasha. She was sitting on the top step of the building, caught in a suffocating embrace by the Senator as SHIELD Agents stood around them, not wanting to interrupt. He sighed: it was typical of her to put off getting medical help, even as she bled from a gunshot wound.

The Senator was blubbering into Natasha’s shoulder “I just can’t thank you enough. I’m a mother of three and”- 

“It’s alright, ma’am. It’s all going to fine now.” He heard her answer, slightly awkwardly, as the Senator released her.

“Please tell me your name.” The woman asked earnestly.

“Natasha Romanoff.” She was starting to look pale.

Clint walked up to her and looped an arm under her armpit on her uninjured side, hauling Natasha to her feet. “Agent Romanoff, you need medical. Come on, I’ll take you.”

The Senator stood up, getting out of their way. “Oh, of course. I wish you a speedy recovery, Natasha.”

Natasha smiled weakly at the Senator and waved, then looked up at him and actually rolled her eyes. “It’s just a graze, Barton, barely even a bullet wound.” They began walking towards the paramedics that had set up nearby.

“Don’t care. You got shot, I’m not dealing with your masochism today.”

“Tomorrow?”

“You drive me crazy, woman.”

“That’s why you love me.”

“That’s why you _what_?” Hill had materialized beside them without the pair noticing and was now staring at them with raised eyebrows.

Natasha smiled sweetly. “Deputy-director Hill. Clearly, I’m delirious from blood loss. Don’t pay me any mind.”

Hill snorted. “Ha. Nice try. The two of you are about to get the longest anti-fraternization lecture in SHIELD history when you come in tomorrow.”

“I look forward to it.” Clint told her nonchalantly as the pair continued walking- well, Clint was walking, and Natasha was being almost entirely supported by Clint now. He was scared to look at her face, expecting her to be pretty pissed that their plausible deniability was going to be out the window from now on.

Natasha laughed out loud. “I was wondering when it would happen.”

“You’re not mad?” Clint asked, hesitantly.

“Clint, realistically, what are they going to do? Strike Team Delta as we knew it is already over.”

Unfortunately, she was right, Clint thought, as they finally made it to the paramedics, who began fussing over Natasha’s arm. Although the two of them certainly hadn’t been the most photographed Avengers during the Battle of New York, pictures of them both had made it online and on the news; Clint had even been recognized once on the streets. For them, saving the world had meant sacrificing their ability to go undercover, even though they hadn’t known it at the time. Not that it would have changed anything if they had, but it would have been nice to be prepared. They hadn’t gone on many missions yet since the Battle of New York, but so far, it seemed that Strike Team Delta had become limited to serving as guard dogs and executioners. He had bitterly joked to Natasha that their careers in espionage were just two more of Loki’s victims. As if he hadn’t taken enough from him.

Without Natasha, he never would have made it through the first two months after New York. Every nightmare, every day where he couldn’t get out of bed because the guilt was crushing him so thoroughly that he couldn’t move, every time he felt so disgusted with himself that he just got angry, punching walls and finding things he could break: she was there for it all. He felt horrible that he had put so much on her, that he had relied on her so heavily, but she never complained, and she never abandoned him. He had asked her about it once, why she stayed, how she could be so patient with him. “You’ve held me together more times than I can count” she had answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I can do those things for you, because you’ve been showing me how for ten years. Everything I know about caring for someone, I learned from you.” God, that had made him cry.

After Natasha’s arm was cleaned, stitched, and bandaged, and Clint had been assured that it really was just a flesh wound, they were cleared to head home for the day, the debriefing scheduled for the next morning. Her apartment was closer, so that’s where they headed. “Alright, here’s what I’m thinking: pizza, beer, The Princess Bride, early bedtime. Opinions?” Clint asked, wincing at how stiff his knees were as they stepped into the elevator of her building.

“I got shot today, Hawkeye. That makes it a hard liquor night.”

“‘Hawkeye’, huh?” She smiled at him as she unlocked her door. “But you’re right, a gunshot wound does warrant something stronger than beer. Vodka for you, whiskey for me, pizza and Princess Bride for us both?”

“Now you’re talking.” Natasha kissed his cheek as she kicked her shoes off. “Throw in a back massage and I’d say you’re in the running for boyfriend of the year.”

Boyfriend? “I thought you said you’d never call me that.”

“Yeah, well, don't repeat it."

Taking care to avoid her injured arm, he pulled her in close and kissed her. She relaxed into him, and in that moment, nothing mattered but the two of them; not the fact that he had watched her get shot two hours ago, not the fact that they were going to get their asses handed to them by Fury the next day, not the fact that everything was uncertain and changing all around them. “Don’t worry. I’ll take it to the grave.”

**********

**Iowa**

The dreaded anti-fraternization lecture that occurred the day after the Senatorial assassination attempt turned out to be more of a formality then a scolding. Fury and Hill had conducted it, both of them visibly smug that their suspicions had finally been confirmed.

“So.” Fury had started once they were all seated. “How long has this been going on?”

She and Clint had turned to each other, Clint looking rather nonplussed. “There’s not really a clear answer to that, sir.” He ventured.

“We first violated SHIELD policy nine years ago. Off and on until about 2010.” Natasha had answered, unable to contain a smile and hoping it didn’t look overtly disrespectful.

“Nine years ago?” Fury asked, forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Agent Romanoff, when did you join SHIELD, again?”

“Ten years ago.”

Hill clucked in disapproval. “Wow, you held off for a whole year. That must have taken a lot of restraint.”

“Well, she was in deprogramming for three months, so that helped.” Clint grinned broadly, resting elbows on the back of his chair.

“And I didn’t really start talking to him until about six months after that, so it was really more like a few months.” She added, unhelpfully, smirking.

Fury and Hill shared an exasperated look. “Did Coulson know?” Fury asked, his expression suggesting he already knew the answer. 

“Absolutely.” Natasha affirmed, squeezing Clint’s hand under the table at the mention of Coulson’s name.

“One more question, for documentation purposes: what is the current status of your relationship?” Hill asked warily, as if she was expecting this question to start an argument between them.

“Thanks for asking, Maria. We’ve been in a committed relationship for three years.” Clint stated confidently.

“As absolutely _thrilling_ as that is to hear” Fury remarked, checking his watch and standing up “you can’t continue to work together in the field. SHIELD policy.”

Natasha groaned. She had been wrong about them not enforcing the rules, and she knew exactly where this was going. “But there is an exception: Agents who are married are exempt from this policy.” He informed them, with his tone as close to gleeful as Nick Fury ever got. Judging by Clint’s face, he hadn’t read the SHIELD handbook very closely- this seemed to be very new information to him.

Fury had ordered her and Clint to use some of their vacation time, as it was adding up again anyway, and sort it all out between them and make a decision. There was really no need for that, in the end. They had it sorted before they even left Headquarters.

Three days later, they were back at the Barton farmhouse; Clint was outside chopping wood, and Natasha was sprawled on the couch, fiddling with the metal band on her finger.

They had gotten married, of course. There was no way they were going to give up being partners in the field, so they bit the bullet and had the ceremony at the courthouse as soon as they were able, with Hill and Fury as the two witnesses after both of them promised that it would stay absolutely confidential. Thus far, neither of them had taken the idea of being married too seriously, choosing to focus on the absurdity of the situation instead of panicking about the legally binding, lifelong commitment they had just made to one another, although she was sure it would be an issue at some point. Natasha, pragmatic as ever, felt that the benefits outweighed the drawbacks by a long shot. It would certainly make things easier the next time one of them landed themselves in the hospital, and now, they had the freedom to choose how public or private they wanted their relationship to be, with SHIELD no longer an obstacle. 

He threw open the door, carrying a pile of wood and covered in sweat from the scorching August heat, already brutal at seven in the morning. Smiling, he sat down beside her on the couch, and she slung her legs over his lap.

“You brought me in to SHIELD ten years ago today.” She told him softly as he wiped his brow on his t-shirt.

“I know.” She was a little surprised he had remembered. Clint wasn’t great with knowing dates. “And to think, we were _so close_ to the ten-year anniversary of nearly killing each other coinciding with our wedding day.

Natasha smiled. “That certainly would have been fitting for us. Considering the promise that you made me that morning in Budapest, it almost would have been too perfect.”

Clint chuckled. “You know, I never intended on needing to keep that promise.”

“I could tell. Neither did I, but I liked that you made it anyway.” She confessed, sitting up and snuggling into his side, touching her forehead to his.

“Nat, could I be honest for a minute?” It was almost a whisper.

“Yeah, sure.”

“It’s weird that we’re married, right? Am I overthinking this? I love you, more than anything, but I just never saw this in the cards for us because…we’re not exactly proponents of traditional values, are we? I never even thought marriage had much meaning to me, I mean, my parents were married and that wasn’t exactly a stable, loving relationship. But now that we’re here and doing this, it feels more significant than I had imagined. It makes me nervous, and I’m terrified that it’s going to scare you off.”

Pressing a kiss to his nose, she answered easily. “You’re not overthinking it. It’s very weird. I just started being able to stomach calling you my boyfriend, and now you’re my husband.” She thought for a second before continuing. “But honestly? It doesn’t worry me very much, because I know we’ll figure it out. We’ve navigated through a whole lot of ‘weird’ together.” Clint slowly beamed, and it made her chest feel warm. “I’m legally stuck with you now, but I’ve known for a long time that you’re the only person I could ever be with. As of right now, I’m not sure that I’m enamored with the idea of being someone’s wife, but if I have to be married, I’m really glad that it’s to you. Does that make sense?” Natasha sighed, laughing at herself a little.

“That makes perfect sense to me. I can live with that answer.” He intertwined her hands with his, and she laid her head on his shoulder.

“I love you, Mr. Barton.”

“And I, you, Mrs. Barton.”

For a moment, the voice of Natalia, the young girl who she had been before Clint had found her, resurfaced in her mind, telling her what the Red Room had drilled into her, that she was a weapon, unfit for love. But Natasha was stronger than her now. She blocked her out.

Natasha had done horrible things in her life, and that would never stop being true. Innocent people had died at her hands, and she would spend forever dealing with the consequences of her actions. But after the Battle of New York, she had decided that her ledger was finally balanced, the black and the red canceling each other out at long last. The decision had given her peace between all the fragmented parts of herself, between Natalia, Natasha, and the Black Widow, a peace that she realized she had been chasing since she joined SHIELD.

She wasn’t a good person, that was nearly indisputable. Her morals weren’t the same as most people’s, and her ideas of right and wrong were more than slightly skewed. But with Clint, it didn’t matter. He understood her completely, and he didn’t mind the things about her that were broken and misshapen. When Natasha was ready, he helped her start to repair them, and he loved her unconditionally as she worked through it all.

Being married to Clint, vowing to spend the rest of her life with him, it scared her; but it paled in comparison to her fear of spending the rest of her life without him.

So, Natasha smiled when he called her ‘Mrs. Barton’. “Are you trying to hint that you want me to take your last name?”

“I’d settle for ‘Romanoff-Barton’. A little more modern.” She punched his shoulder, and he frowned. “Wait. Nat, can you even do that? Like, seriously. Are you a US citizen?”

She stared at him blankly, opening and closing her mouth a few times before she spoke. “That’s a great question, Clint. I have no idea.”

Within seconds, they were both doubled over with laughter.

“You have a driver’s license, didn’t you need a birth certificate, social security number, something?” He wheezed.

Natasha caught her breath, trying in vain to compose herself. “I never took a test or anything, someone from legal just gave me a dossier with a driver’s license, a passport, and back account information a few months after I got to SHIELD.” This sent them both into another fit of laughter.

“Do you pay taxes?”

“Yes!”

“Can you vote?”

“Never tried.”

“You don’t vote?”

“You do?”

Clint wiped his eyes. “Every year. I’m an independent voter.”

Her side hurt from laughing. “How very Clint Barton. Opposing the two-party system.” She settled down a little. “How has all of this never come up? You think you know everything about the person you married, and then…”

“I never claimed to know everything about you” He said pointedly.

“Smart man.”

He kissed her, gently at first, but then more insistently, knotting his hands in her hair as Natasha ran a hand up his thigh. 

“Pause until after breakfast?” Clint asked, taking a breath.

“I’ll make pancakes.” Natasha volunteered, smacking his ass playfully as they stood up.

“You are a goddess.”

With their luck, this domestic bliss probably wouldn’t last, and aliens would fall from the sky again in an hour or two just to ruin their honeymoon, but she didn’t care. There was hot coffee in chipped mugs and wildflowers in a vase and pancakes cooking in their kitchen, and they were deeply, nauseatingly, in love. And as far as Natasha was concerned, there was nothing better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a journey. I have had so much fun writing this, and will probably write more in this little universe. 
> 
> thank you so much if you stuck around until the end! please leave a comment if you enjoyed reading it- I'll take any excuse to write instead of doing schoolwork I really should be prioritizing :)
> 
> (ps: you did not miss anything, the part about the promise he made her in Budapest will be explained in another fic)


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